• * % ' ♦ 

* A ^ ^ » 

« i 

^ ^ ^ « 
*’ • *1 n 

• • *i 

I ' ■ • *. I 

> L *" * 

•. r\ i’ l'; 


» V » « f 


J «• -.« ».l .- H • I .:^T 

M i :: 


.4 ^4 -i . < , i - I-. 

t-’ /Ui 

« y * •» • 4 t • ♦ r 

|>-v» •. \rf>»''< 
.•'-•#•'•#*< ♦; 
|-«1i*,4^»-i-t -4 

vl 4 rv 


• rf .- f i 

/ / V I » r 


1 * 7 « ' 4 t 4.- < .1 i ;i4 

.».«.»*• I - ^ r » f ' i 

*.w t-« >,■-»» 

^ fU •» ♦ r a - fc . ■• -• s v4 '. • 


•wV «»*/ • * 

f,i»i j»i4 

.-- * ,.- t -. J i 


-^ . t • . t . 4 ( • 

.Ji »« .-• «r'»v ■•; i 

( » f -i 1 : 4 ..•- » -• 4 C 

-• • — •-.-•«’< » -i- I 

!•;» .'* <n ' % ■- i ’ 

> -a** - I - 4 -. 4 -. 

I j a > ^ 

t ?t .- • .•• •» I'. I -4 I 
« ,. - B 4 i-i- 

» -=4 . . < I 




I i ’ I", 

X4 'ftt V^'U4 ^ 


/ViU i 

■It ■ i • .• • • I 

• .;. « . * <■ # ; ^ • .. 

-ty<t 

• ' HI ■^^* : 4 »t -k 

/« ii«« :« 

_\ 1 4 • s » -iw ^ » 
■i 7% . 4 T -/f ; 

it i ^ • *•- # v < •, 4 
B 4 4 .« I .'. t » I - 


I -• * -» 


u • T 

44r'4*4« X, *■«*••>»'•» 

• ..■ 131 f ; ♦ *■3 . » , 


1 « 4 _•» ' 


t cl ^ -i 

■ 


i - *' *s 


f ^ s’! < 

•■• . ! J 
15 1 •• • • 
•« < 

I ♦ • ♦ 
k I 3^^ 

Vi il Ji 


1 ^ ^ • - t 

:, t ‘ 4 ^ • iT- ’ 

. . ' t I > 


* » .• . ^ I 

••• • 4 ••« -«• ' J 

, 4 ' . 4 -1 t I 

1 •,•.••*• 

4 * 4 4* 

.-• « * . 4 i, • - ■ 

- '. * •’* .1 '*-4 

■.••■4 m' ; ■! 

X - 4 4 4 •-« 

■ ; « * * X 

« « 4 •« '.■; 
4: • , • w * ..• 1 
V « .a . 4> « . 

-‘I 

r\ 

- t S .¥ » X <1 k ^ 

-» • *■ • • ‘ 4 

L - ' - »,«—*• 

«T B. .4. .•< ^5 

^ » p ' "i » a . > » 

* ♦ - I :• • -• 

. . « j . .» , ^ 

-- 4 -- ■ 4 -* » • 4 ? • 

» * . X • • j ■ <• y •» ^ 


?• 

S' •• 

>? 

• >' r •» .» X • • V 4 ^ x‘ -t 4 
• -« J 4 1 '. 4 • « r 

4 ' * S »■ 4 4 4 

f - • ♦ -4*4 

ili* :4 >rirk4 


r-''4 • .ixx4ij».j*^ii 

■•I. ir'‘4>«i«i.;;<.44 

f 4*‘4 '4 i* »4 {-•■ 4 -. 

f t •! • - ? J ■ V • ^ • B ' 

■J' fJ'W 

k • t ^ K • - ^ »xi . * > 

», • ’• •iXj-.-. 

t 'X-l*'#'* y « V 
.*4«>*<^4*>-k4*l.'1 
l•»l.*•»•. S*-S4»«" i 

- ' -• 

tit n -T ‘ V 


it . 

inti 


lx- 11^4 84 ...» S 

4 V4 • • /I •■ * r • 


-•» 4 i 4 

» ! ' ir 


4 V 4 . « ^ « . - 4 •• 4 i » , # • » t • . 4 

4':i '-.k 

.X 4 . 4 ■ ’ J 1 •- 4 * ^ ‘ . 4 .. 1 4 • U 


rf i:4 : 1 • I : 4 ' » if-lf - 

I .. 4 4 . » . I 4 i 4 

i . -V 4 I X »•} X 1 '4 

-4 -'t - 44> f * I - ff 

t ■ff ■*.■* 3 , ‘ i* 
n it 3x4t -4 ' ♦ - 4 

' • ■ . I ; 4 ^ * I % « * ► 

-» ♦•f xf l x*-? 

• « .'4 - M r i « a » : i 
ra'xlli'St Jknv -4 

j • -y « f T -4 « j X .1-. . r - 

PS 1 •4-«4-«4 -1 •« -4 

x«*»i / •'r44- ■■ V. ) •• 

•4 M -j -'4 ^ ♦ 

B4 ^ Jx > *11 J • i I ^ 

S*4 14* » I i I * .‘i H 
r'*4'»<rk»-4xi »»•-• 

i Jt -? 1 ^ ^ ' ’ 

J : . 4 . X . T. a rx V • 
V-. '*.x -/-I 4 i 

I ; 4 » • 4 *■ • -. • » * I 

f : t -I ‘ » 1 i* . .• 

I 1.4 ■< - I ^ •...• 

4 * X it I* i 4 ^ 1 V < V ' 
I, J * ’a :* , 


« - 4 . 

.1 . t .• • a 4 
4 B • •• .- 4 
1 • 4 4 , » 

• 44^4 ! a » « 

• • ’ * 1-*- 

\ * i - • 4 . ■ 

V • •» t . • 

» 4 • -• % J 

4 - I . I ;■> 

• t ' I X# 1 

• ' *■ ■ - 

. •- : i 4 1. 

f 4 ♦ ' 4 ■ 

r % ^ • t 

> ' . xc *4^ ^ 4 

4 3 '* ♦ 

j i ; • » • « t 

».: ■■■ - t / 

-. I 1 • I . 4 
V I. * 

»“*• t.*-* *t 

,-- I. -4B '. I t* 

y t y* . « k • 
t it • « • « 

\*: if 114 

- » a . * T 

4 • » .<•>•!■ 

* I * »( ! 4 ^ 1 

f *.. 4 .. 

V 4 -. « f t> Vr • 
« 44 V* i < * - 


X -. • 4 ; 4 . 4 V 

* .- » ,. n .. * a «■ 
t 1 -. 1 ■ 1 ■ 1 

: 4__ » 1 *. * 

4 - .1 * •• ’ i *- * ' 

4;»-.xa--- 

.4^*44 • 

.. 4 .• •-•. « « r- 

1 f ' « • ' » ■<• 

» - l. ' - 1 •si- 
X a I -a 1 • • I . • 

I » • • -4 

♦ • .« f v . . 

> • •> » ■ r t : 

• V ^ . « J 1 '< • 

, . X. 1 '.XX 

• » 4 -• f - 1 • 

• - . » X. t * 1 

• • • . 1 . ■ 

, . ^ . I iX 

4 4 '0 f • -i 

• a > 4 ■ 4 * 

. . » ♦ • 1 - • 1> 4 * » -y, t 

4 - 4 .1 i • 

ft*.* X y • X te » 
s ■ » > y 4 = ‘ x* t i - ! 

. < s; » ^ « -• ■ ’ 

'4.4 • • i 

» • 1 4 4 4 , 

t , •«» • *1 4 ^ 4 i. ' 

'« •• * * « 

■; r* 

■ ' '4 *.- * 4 4 w < 

V V* 4 44 • 4 

t« P4^<^4« 

t . » 4 4 '. r .•• 4 . 

: * . t ■ 1 r X ; ■ 

i y ?t4 it > X. 

. t . I 4 • i 

Ji • X • » f W • . 

• • ' »• 71 ' 


y • , 4 s 

* -4 4 

« • » • J 
4 > »' 1 » 
V.# » .• c 


x^.%.vr:‘r 


' J .1 » >• J* > * » 1 I JX .1 - 4 

» ^ I' .i. *t . •-•'X.x • 

'*-x'9x«**i-a4 - i'B-* 
•I / . 1 # . .4 •« 1 7 J ! 


a • » 

’ * 7 t 

74 - 


1 ' » T-t 
. •! •' • -. 
4/S Bx-x ■ 

» a . « 

• *. * •- 4 
;• » - * 

t ••• 


•• / •« 1-XJ1 

. i . »• . t . » , V . t-. , B- 

- -.t. . :■ -»••• ••• 

• a ..- 4 4 «> * -' •• -4 • '•• 

« 4-4 -T_».V<^4x 

1 x 4 - I X t 1 ^ • .i . _v , 

4 * .,• r .. 4 yi y 4 fc-» . » r 

.' .1 ^ «i , * j xj ^ , , x» 4 

■- •■ •« • .'V .t • 9 4 4 a . 























i 




'v \i' *” c!^'' 

.V </>. ^ 


/ WN * 3 ^ 

c^- ^ '=s«(/^ ^ . 




^ ' 0 ^ k '^ ^ <■'/*<, s ' \ V '^ ' O , k " ^0 

^ 0 °' .‘ 14 : o <.‘“ ‘ ‘ 

'"oo'' ° 

xO °^. ”, 

s'- i') '' 

\ r\^ 





"c 

“■ fe>0 V \. _ 


s'- v'A 



° SJ^ '^cf' " 

v.vw. ^ vV^ ^ %^y 

\^ ^ 8 1 A 

// O v-' -?- * » A 

.... 



sV 


Cl'O ^ 

-i, ^ 

O ft -> \ ' , 1 R ^0 <* '*■' / * ft S '■ , , » 



0 



C* g> * o . <:^ ^ ^c{A/ ^ 

L:* v'"^ »'•».. "> * ' " \o’^ 

<» ^ jA /k '^. (1^ O 

A*^' 'o^ 0^- 




* 



I 


[\: 


J 










YIEGER’S CABINET. 


PIRITUAL YAMPIRISM^: 

THE HISTORY 

5 * 

OP ' n 


ETHEEIAL SOFTDOWN, 


AND 

In /titnJis nf tljt “jStia ligfit.” 


BY or W. WEBBER, 

n 

AUTHOR OF 

• OLD HICKS THE GUIDE,” “ CHARLES WINTERFIELD PAPERS,” “ THE HUNTER-NATURALIST,” 
“tales of THE SOUTHERN BORDER,” ETC. 


A heavy, hell-like paleness loads her cheeks, 
Unknown to a clear heaven. 

John Marston. 


0 vulture-witch, hast never heard of mercy ? 

Endymion. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

LIPPINCOTT, GKAMBO & CO. 

1 8 5 3 . 




rz3 

Y 

Copy y 


Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1853, by 
LIPPINCOTT, CRAMBO & CO., 

in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, in and for 
the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. 

STEREOTYPED BY J. FAQAX. T. K. AND P. G. COLLINS, PRINTERS. 


Bequest 

OlesuoxiS 

Aug. 24, 1&38 
(Not avaUable lor exchange) 


US 


INTEODUCTION. 


On page 392 of the concluding sketch of a late series, the 
“ Tales of the Southern Border,’’ occurs the following pas- 
sage : — 


‘<THE ESCRITOIRE. 

“ The author, being a resident of New York during the period 
of the leading incidents narrated as occurring in that city, had 
formed the acquaintance of the principal personage. Himself 
a Southerner, he had, from the natural affinities of origin, inev- 
itably been attracted toward Carter. The intercourse between 
them, at first reserved, had imperceptibly warmed into a degree 
of intimacy, which, however, had by no means been such as to 
render him at all cognisant, beyond the merest generalities, of 
the progress of his private affairs. He was not a little surprised, 
therefore, at finding, one day, an elegant escritoire or cabinet, 
of dark, rich wood, heavily banded in the old-fashioned style 
with silver, which had been placed, in his absence, on the table 
of his sanctum. A note, in a sealed envelope, lay upon it. He 
instantly recognised the handwriting of the address as that of 
Mr. Carter, and broke the seal. 


( 3 ) 


4 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


“ It was evidently written in great haste, feut without any sig i 
of trepidation. It ran thus : — 

“ My dear Friend : 

“ I have no time for explanations, as I am in the midst of 
hurried preparations for an unexpected yacht- voyage — upon 
which I set sail in a few minutes. I send you an escritoire, 
which was left in my charge by a highly valued friend. He 
was an extraordinary man ; and its contents will be, I doubt 
not, of great value to the world. 

“ It was given me, with the injunction that it should not be 
opened until six months after his death. The six months were 
up some weeks since, but I have lately been too much otherwise 
absorbed to think of making use of the privilege of the key. 
I now therefore transfer to you this bequest in full, with the 
proviso that you will not open it for six months. If at the end 
of that time I have not been heard from, please open, and with- 
out reserve make what use of it your excellent sense may justify. 
Please take charge of whatever correspondence may arrive to 
my address for the same length of time, at the expiration of 
which you will also please to consider yourself as my ex- 
ecutor — open my correspondence and proceed as you may 
think best. Pardon this unceremonious intrusion of responsi- 
bilities upon an intimacy, the terms of which I hardly feel would 
strictly justify me ; but the plea that I know no one else whom 
I can trust, and have no time for further explanation, will I am 
sure justify me in the eyes of a brother Southron. 

“Yours truly, 

“ Frank Carter. 


INTRODUCTION. 


5 


“ Six months havlhg elapsed, and still no news of my singular 
friend Carter, the fulfilment of the important duties of executor, 
thus unexpectedly devolved upon him, were deferred by the 
narrator as long as his sense of duty would possibly admit. At 
last, when longer delay would have seemed to assume almost 
the aspect of criminality, the duty of opening the cabinet was 
unwillingly entered upon.” 


On my next meeting with my friend Carter, who proved still 
to be in the land of the living, I spoke to him of the cabinet 
and its remarkable contents, which had so unexpectedly been 
left in my charge ; offering to resign to him my trusteeship. 
To this, however, he would by no means consent, but continued 
to insist, as in his original letter, that I should without reserve 
make what use of it my sense of propriety might dictate. I 
was finally overruled into undertaking the mere arrangement 
and editorship of its contents — for the revelations there made are 
in many respects so strangely horrifying and unusual, that I fear 
the world will be little disposed to pardon my agency in giving 
them publicity. However, as I believe them to be, in every 
respect, genuine life-experiences, I have determined to make 
the venture, come what will of it. We shall therefore give, as 
proper introduction to the singular narrative which we have 
selected from beneath the blood-stained seals of the cabinet it 
has been our fate to open, the following singular paper, whichv 
we found lying separately above the folds of the MS. which 
constitutes the History of Etherial Softdown. 


1 


6 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


THE PHILOSOPHY OF MESMERIC IMPOSITION. 

^ TO BE READ BY PHILOSOPHERS ONLY.* 

The existence of what may be called the nervous or Odic 
fluid — the sympathetic element — has been partially known to all 
ages. The knowledge of this powerful secret, in moving and 
controlling mankind, has been professionally and almost exclu- 
sively confined to the adepts of all sects, religions, and periods ; 
though it has occasionally, in various ways, leaked out of the 
penetralia, principally through its forms, accompanied with 
little or no apprehension of their vital meaning. It is in 
this w'ay that a series of scientific phenomena, the discovery 
of w^hich probably originated with a remote priestcraft, and 
had been made to ^observe exclusive ends, has gradually been 
fragmented among the people, and in many imperfect, ignorant, 
and vitiated forms has now become the common property of 
science. 

• When it is understood that this nervous fluid is nothing more 
nor less than that force — whether electrical, magnetic, odic, or 
otherwise named — which, lubricating the nervous system in 
man, produces all vital phenomena — is, in a word, the vital 
force — the active principle of life — it will not be difficult to 
comprehend how important a knowledge of its laws may be 
rendered to even those relations of life not exclusively physical. 

Mesmer promMgated, under his own name, as a new and 
astounding discovery in science, something of the sympathetic 
laws to which this nervous or Odic fluid is subject, and by 

* The Story begins at Chapter I. — Ed. 




f 


INTEODUCTION. 


7 


which the vital and spiritual relations of man to the external 
universe are in a great measure modified, and even controlled. 
This was no discovery of his, but had been the mainly 
exclusive secret of the ancient priesthood ; employed alike in 
the ceremonies of the novitiate in the Thibetian temples of 
Buddha, in the Egyptian Initiation, and in Grecian Pythism. 
But the particular reason why his announcements c.aused such 
prodigious excitement, in 1784, as to run all Paris mad, even 
including the court of the wary Louis XVI., and still continue 
to excite and madden mankind, is, that, as the sympathetic 
ecstacies and furors, superinduced by the mummeries of his 
famous ‘‘vat,” were called by a new. name, the people failed to 
recognise them, although they had been familiarised with, and 
even acting habitually under their influence, while surrounded 
by accessories of a more sacred character. The immediate 
success of Mesmer’s experiments amazed men. He, in fact, 
little knew what he was doing himself; the effects he under- 
stood how to produce, because accident had furnished him with 
the formulas. Having gone through these, which, though most 
grotesque and preposterous, later experience has shown, really 
included all the “passes” and other conditions necessary to 
establish sympathy through the nervous fluid with the victims 
of his delusion, he proceeded to produce exhibitions the most 
extraordinary the world ever saw, except in the hideous and 
frantic orgies of some wild, barbaric creed, and the parallels to 
which, in this country, are to be found in the shrieks and bel- 
lowings of a fanatic camp-meeting, Miller ascension-tent. Mor- 
mon rite, or hard-cider political mass-meeting. 

Beginning with the postulate that “ Nature abhors a vacuum,” 
it does not seem difficult to understand something, at least, of 


8 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


the rationale of this sympathetic influence of one man over 
another. The laws of the distribution of this Odic force seem 
to bear a somewhat general affinity to those of electricity. The 
surcharged cloud discharges its superfluous fluid into the cloud 
more negatively charged. The man holding a superfluous 
amount of vital or Odic force, can dismiss a portion of this — 
along the course of its proper lightning-rods, or conveyers, the 
nerves — into the organisation of a being more negatively 
charged, or, in other w’ords, of a weaker man. As electricity 
can only act upon inert matter through its proper media, the 
elements, so the Odic fluid can only act upon organised matter 
normally through its proper medium, the nerves of vitality. 
This communication of the Odic fluid, by which sympathy be- 
tween the two beings has been established, can be, to a certain 
degree, regulated and controlled by manipulations which bring 
the thumbs and fingers of the hand, which are properly Odic 
poles, in contact with certain great nerves, or centres of nerves, 
along which the influence can be readily communicated. These 
manipulations, the vital and original meanings of which these 
Mesmer agitators have betrayed, may be traced very clearly 
through the most important ceremonies of religion, and the 
secret orders of fraternisation in the world. From this point of 
view^, how significant the “ laying-on of hands” in ordination, 
the ‘‘joining of hands” in the marriage ceremony, &c. 

Here let us remark, that w^e would no more be understood 
as accusing a Christian Priesthood, in modern times, of having 
made an improper use, either inside or out of their profession, 
of the manipulations mentioned above, than we w^ould think of 
accusing them of having, as a class, any special knowledge of 
their significance beyond that of ceremonial forms, set down in 


INTRODUCTION. 


9 


the discipline. It has been to the Heathen Priesthood that we 
have consistently attributed a knowledge of the psychological 
meaning of these ceremonials, which have descended through 
the Hebrew and Christian churches as avowee dly divested of vital 
significance, and intended, in their arbitrary exaction, as, to a 
certain degree, ordained tests of Christian faith and obedience. 

But it is by no means indispensable to the exhibition of the 
Odic phenomena, that the processes of manipulation should 
have been literally gone through with in all cases — nor, indeed, 
in the majority even — for some of the most apparently inexpli- 
cable and extraordinary of them all are brought about without 
such intervention. Take, as comparatively ‘‘modern instances,” 
such effects as those produced by the preaching of Peter the 
Hermit, when not only vast armies of men w^ere moved like 
flights of locusts toward the Desert, on the breeze of his fiery 
breath, to disappear, too, as they, within its bosom, and never 
be heard from again, but even great armies of children rushed 
in migratory hordes to the sea-ports, to ship for the Holy Land ! 
— and those produced by the crusade of Father Mathew against 
intemperance, in our time, when all Ireland lay wailing at his 
feet. These great furors were precisely identical with those 
already enumerated, so tar as the sympathetic or motive power 
went. So with the story of the rise of Mahomet, Joe Smith, 
Miller, and all such agitators. They are usually men of pro- 
digious vital power, and of course surcharged with the Odic 
fluid, who begin these great movements ; and they possess, be- 
side, vast patience and endurance. They begin by filling the 
individuals in immediate contact with them, as Mahomet did 
his own family, with the superfluity of the Odic force in them- 
selves, and having thus obtained a single medium by this imme- 


10 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


diate contact — which, although it may not imply the formal 
manipulations with preconceived design, implies the accidental 
equivalents — the circle gradually enlarges through each fresh 
accession, in much the same w^ay that it began, until, after a few 
patient years of unshaken endurance, the apostle finds himself 
surrounded by thousands and thousands of human beings, 
whose volition is swayed through this Odic force — this sympa- 
thetic medium— * by his own central, resolute, and self-poised 
will, as if they were but one man. His moveless volition has 
been, from the beginning, the base and axis of the vast sympa- 
thetic movement going on around him, and upon the single 
strength of the Odic force within him, all depends, until, 
through a thorough organisation of ceremonial laws and obser- 
vances, the system of which he was the vital centre assumes a 
corporate existence, and can stand alone. 

This is about the method in which all such organisations, 
radiating from the one man power or centre, widen their circles 
to an extreme circumference, until the force of the pebble thrown 
into the great lake is exhausted. So it is with all sympathetic 
excitements — from the Dancing Dervishes, the Shaking Quakers, 
or the Barking Brothers, to the vast Empire of France, led fren- 
zied over the world in the will-o’-the-wisp chase of univer- 
sal sovereignty, by the fantastic will of a Napoleon. These 
are some of the general phenomena of sympathy, and there are 
many quite as extraordinary, if not a| broad in what are called 
atmospheric or epidemic conditions, which go to prove the uni- 
versality of this sympathetic law. 

The distinctions between Od and Heat, Od and Electricity, 
as well as Od and Magnetism, have been so clearly demon- 
strated by the investigations of Baron Reichenbach as to leave 


INTRODUCTION. 


11 


at present no choice between the terms. Od expresses that 
force which, differing in many essential properties from the other 
two, can alone through its phenomena be reconciled with what 
we know of the Sympathetic or Nervous Fluid. It is therefore 
used as a synonym of this mysterious agency, and as conveying 
a far higher definition and significance than either the term 
Electricity or Mesmerism. 

The w^orst and the best that the agitation begun by Mesmer 
has accomplished, is, to have stripped old Necromancy of its 
mysterious spells, by revealing something of the rationale of 
them, while at the same time, in unveiling its processes to the 
sharp eyes of modern knaves, they have been enabled to appro- 
priate and practise them again with even more than the old 
success, under the new christening of “ scientific experiment.” 
It is, I think, easily enough shown, by a minute and circum- 
stantial comparison of the cotemporary history of the dark age 
of black art ascendancy in Europe, which w^as literally the dark 
age of chivalry, with that of Cotton Mather witch-burning en- 
lightenment in New England, that the arts practised by the 
accused in both these countries, and at all other such pe- 
riods in all other countries, were nearly identical with each 
other ; and those familiarised to us through the doings of mes- 
meric manipulation, revelation, clairvoyance, spiritual knockings, 
&c., &c., are generally the very same, though assuming slight 
shades of difference, indicating some progressive development. 
A partial knowledge of psychological laws, w’hich was formerly, 
and with great plausibility, considered altogether too dangerous 
pabulum for the vulgar mind, has been sown broadcast by the 
empiricism of this mesmeric movement, the principal oracles 
and expounders of which have been clearly as ignorant of the 


12 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


causes with which they agitated, as ever wrinkled crone of peat- 
smoked hovel was of the true laws of that occult palmistry, 
through the practice, or vague traditions of which, she finally 
prophesied herself into the martyrdom of the red-hot plough- 
shares,” or the warm resting-place of the pot of boiling pitch. 
They only know that certain formulas produce certain results, 
and as they are blundering entirely in the dark, they mix those 
which have a basis in science with the crude and meaningless 
forms which ignorance, with its abject cunning, easily supplies. 
From such amalgamations have arisen the mummeries of conju- 
ration in whatever form, and by the imprudent use of which, 
the credulous, simple and superstitious, are so easily ‘‘ fright- 
ened from their propriety,” and thus made easy victims of more 
dangerous arts. 

But it is a study of the fearful uses which have been made by 
the evil-disposed, of this partial knowledge of the laws of rela- 
tion of soul to the body, that is more interesting now than these 
olden disguises of the same evil in more helpless forms ; as now, 
y through the mesmeric agitation, it has really attained to some 
gleam of causes — has now something of scientific illumination 
to steady and give direction to its reckless and deadly aim. In 
the radius of its hurtful circumference, the vicious power of the 
witch, fortune-teller or conjuror, was as much more circum- 
scribed than that of the semi-scientific charlatan of clairvoyance, 
as the vision of the mole is less than that of the viper, which, 
at least, looks out into the sunshine though every cloud may 
impede its malignant gaze. 

The relative degrees in which the Odic or sympathetic fluid 
may be found exhibited in the different individuals of our race, 
have been previously remarked in general terms. In the sexes. 


INTRODUCTION. 


13 


we most usually find the positive pole in man, who gives out, 
and the negative in woman, who receives and absorbs from him, 
the dispenser. Though this be the general rule so far as the 
sexes are concerned, it is by no means the universal rule for the 
race — since there are among men but few positive poles, or fixed 
centres of Odic radiation ; and where such are found, they are 
observed to possess much of what we commonly call ‘‘ influ- 
ence” with or upon others. All the parties, therefore, within 
the circle of this sympathetic radiation, or “ magnetic attraction,” 
as it is popularly termed, must necessarily be, relatively to this 
positive pole, negative poles, without regard to sex — while each of 
these comparatively negative poles may in turn be a positive pole, 
or Odic centre, to those below or of weaker nature than himself. 

Those men who have been known to all humanity as prophets, 
poets, law-givers, discoverers, reformers, &c., are, and have 
been, what we mean by positive Odic poles ; for while they 
have seemed to stand in immediate and direct communion with 
the spiritual source of all wisdom, they have at the same time 
given out the impulse thus granted, to the people by whom they 
are surrounded, thus acting as the chosen media of divine reve- 
lation, and from the cloudy summits of Sinais handing down 
the tables of the law to all the tribes. 

Now there is a mighty radiation of the Odic force from these 
men, through which the love, wisdom, or rather will in them — 
or sent through them — is made operative upon the great masses 
of mankind ; and this same radiation, in the greater or less de- 
grees, is found emanating from a thousand different sources at 
the same time, affecting man for evil as well as for good ; for, 
when we comprehend that this Odic or sympathetic force is the 

sole medium of communication with the spiritual and invisible 
2 


14 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


world, as well as with the visible and material world, it 
can then be easily understood how what are called ‘‘ evil” 
and ‘‘good spirits” should through it affect mankind. This 
will be fully illustrated when we observe the common condi- 
tions of health and disease. Health is good and disease is 
evil ; and these are the two eternally antagonistic chemical forces 
in the universe. Health is that normal condition of the body 
which enables it to resist evil and maintain the proper balance 
of the spiritual and material elements. Disease is that abnor- 
mal condition of the body in which the integrity of the spiritual 
and organic functions has been destroyed through the sympa- 
thetic media by evil, and good overcome. 

In either case, the balance is destroyed, and the immediate 
consequence may be, in the one, sudden paroxysms of fearful 
insanity, or in the other, sudden death, as in common apoplexy. 

Thus the popular fallacy, that all things having a source in 
the spiritual, or rather the invisible, must of necessity be good, 
is in a very simple way exposed. We see there may be what 
are called evil, as well as good spirits, which hold communion 
with us ; and the safest and only true general rule with regard to 
such matters is, that, while the good spirits are those propitious 
chemical forces which make themselves known to us in love, and 
joy, and peace, through the unbounded happiness of the normal 
conditions of health, the evil spirits are those vicious chemical 
forces, morbid delusions, and malign revelations, which are 
made known to us through all other diseased conditions as well 
as that of Clairvoyance. Remember that no such being has yet 
been known throughout the whole range of Mesmeric experiment 
as a healthy Clairvoyant, or a “ subject” who has attained to the 
super-eminence of Clairvoyance, who was not what they fanci- 


INTRODUCTION. 15 

fully term “ delicate” — that is, liable to those diseases which 
are well known to supervene upon nervous weakness, exhaus- 
tion, or emasculation. This condition of nervous exhaustion 
renders them, of course, the very negation of the negative pole 
of sympathy, and the first person approaching them, who pos- 
sesses the ordinary Odic conditions of health, is clutched hold of 
by their famine-struck vitality, in the agonised plea for life ! life ! 

“ Give ! give !” is still the insatiable cry. They must have 
the Odic fluid restored, and that, in taking from your ‘‘ enough,” 
they exhaust and undermine the holy purposes of your life to 
make up that deficit in their own — which loathsome vice has 
brought about — the “ hideous selfishness of weakness” rather 
rejoices. The sympathetic rapporte being once established, 
they can at least, through this dangerous medium, live in the 
integrities of your life, and enjoy, both physically and spirit- 
ually, a surreptitious vitality, which, while it reflects the pre- 
vailing phenomena of your own mind and spiritual being, has, 
in addition, some approximation even to the physical exaltation 
of your higher health. 

These human vampires or sponges may be, therefore, as well 
absorbents of the spiritual as animal vitality. Their parasitical 
roots may strike into the very centres of life, and their hungry 
suckers remorselessly draw away the virility of manhood, or the 
spiritual strength. 

They seem to be mainly divided into two classes, one of 
which, born, seemingly, wdth but a rudimentary soul, attains to 
its apparent spiritual though merely mental development, by 
-absorption of the spiritual life in others, through the Odic 
medium. Another class, born with a predominating spiritual- 
ity based upon a feeble physique, is ravenous of animal 


16 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


strength, and can only live by its sympathetic absorption of the 
same from others, through the same pervading medium. Of 
the two, the first is the evil type ; for, born in the gross sphere 
of the passions, with a vigorous organisation, but faintly illu- 
minated at the beginning with that golden light of love which 
is spiritual life, the fierce half-monkey being is propelled on- 
wards, and even upwards, by the basest of the purely animal 
instincts, appetites, and lusts. If such beings strive towards 
the light of the harmonious and the beautiful, it is not because 
they yearn for either the holy or the good, but because it lends 
a lurid charm to appetite and glorifies a lust. 

The other character, in whom the spiritual predominates, 
whether from a natal inequality, as is very frequently the case, 
or from the sheer exhaustion of the physical powers, through 
emasculating vices, is yet, in itself, good, so far as its morbid 
conditions leave it an unaccountable being ; but, as its revela- 
tions and utterings depend entirely upon the Odic characters 
and will of those from whom its strength may be derived, it can 
only be regarded, whether used for evil or good, as a medium. 
This character is the common Clairvoyant, to whom we are 
indebted for those strangely-mingled gleams of remote truth, 
with errors the most grave and injurious, which have so tended 
to confuse the judgment of mankind in regard to the pheno- 
mena of Clairvoyance. Such persons can be made as readily 
the medium of any falsehood which the knavish passions of 
their “ Mesmerisers ” may dictate, as they can be caused to 
announce, by a will as strong, but soul more pure, the discon- 
nected myths of science and of history, which have so sur- 
prised the world in what are called the “Revelations” of 
Andrew Jackson Davis. This man belongs to our second 


INTRODUCTION. 


17 


class, and is purely a medium ” of the sympathetic fluid. 
His organisation is most sensibly sympathetic and delicately 
responsive, but is too feeble to balance his spiritual develop- 
ment. His case stands, therefore, as the most remarkable 
modern instance of what the ancients termed ^^vaticination;'*'* 
but, as has been the case with other false prophets, his ‘‘ gifts ** 
have proved of no value, except to knaves. He was undoubt- 
edly practised upon by a choice set of such characters ; and, 
now that he has found in marriage a sympathetic restoration, 
through the physical, of its needed balance with the spiritual, 
he has lost his “ lying gift” of prophecy. 

We have examined this man carefully, and are convinced 
that the whole mystery^ of his revelations and character may be 
contained in a nut-shell. He is to the sphere of intellectual 
and spiritual sympathy, and in a lower sense, precisely an 
analogous case with that of Mozart in the sphere of the musical 
and spiritual. When the great soul of humanity has been long 
— say one generation — in travail with a great thought in art, 
science, music, or mechanics, there is sure to be somebody born 
in the succeeding generation who is physically, mentally, and 
spiritually, the impersonation and embodiment of this thought, 
of which the age is in labor, and who must of necessity be- 
come, solely and singly, the expression and embodiment thereof. 
Thus Mozart, the infant prodigy in music, W'ho at five years old 
was the pet of monarchs and the miracle of his age, continued, 
W’ith no signs of precociousness, a steady and consistent devel- 
opment, which show^ed him to be indeed the embodiment of the 
musical inspirations of his age. His revelations in music were 
just as prodigious as even the rabid worshippers of the Davis 
2 * 


18 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


revelations would imagine those to be ; yet there are some most 
essential differences between the results of the two. 

Davis, born amidst the travail of this new Mesmeric agita- 
tion, became the most sensitive organ of the sympathetic fluid 
in intellect, as the other had been in music ; but as, in the case 
of Mozart, the exciting cause came from Nature, and consti- 
tuted her purest and most sacred inspirations, so the in- 
spiration of Davis came from man, with all his imperfec- 
tions and subjective tendencies. The sequel has been, the 
inspirations of Mozart are considered now by mankind as only 
second to the Divine, while those of Davis are justly regarded 
as morbid, fragmentary, incomplete, and worthless. 

The organisation of Mozart was equally sympathetic with 
that of Davis ; but it was of that healthy tone which could only 
respond to nature and the natural ; while the organisation of 
Davis belongs to that much inferior type, which, from its mor- 
bid and unbalanced conditions, can respond only to the human 
as the representative of nature. Such persons receive nothing 
direct from nature, but only through its representative, man. 

It would seem as if the world were absolutely divided into 
two classes — the radiating and the absorbing; the first receiving 
from nature, and the second from man. In the first, are the 
holy brotherhood of prophets and the poets, and in the second, 
the poor slaves of sympathy — the knaves and fools — the impos- 
tors who play upon its well-known laws, and, deceiving them- 
selves as well as others, may well be said to “ know not what 
they do.” 

We are convinced that no man, who has kept himself in- 
formed of the psychological history and progress of his race 
can by any means fail to recognise at once, in the pretended 


INTRODUCTION. 


19 


“ Revelations ” of Davis, the mere disjecta membra of the sys- 
tems so extensively promulgated by Fourier and Swedenborg. 
When you come to compare this fact with the additional one, 
that Davis, during the whole period of his “ utterings,” was 
surrounded by groups, consisting of the disciples of Fourier 
and Swedenborg; as, for instance, the leading Fourierite of 
America was, for a time, a constant attendant upon those mys- 
terious meetings, at which the myths of innocent Davis were 
formally announced from the condition of Clairvoyance, and 
transcribed by his keeper for the press, while the chief exponent 
and minister of Swedenborgianism in New York was often 
seated side by side with him. 

Can it be possible that these men failed to comprehend, as 
thought after thought, principle after principle, was enunciated 
in their presence, which they had previously supposed to belong 
exclusively to their own schools, that the “revelation” was 
merely a sympathetic reflex of their own derived systems ? It 
was no accident ; for, as often as Fourierism predominated in 
“ the evening lecture,” it was sure that the prime representative 
of Fourier was present ; and when the peculiar views of Swe- 
denborg prevailed, it was equally certain that he was forcibly 
represented in the conclave. Sometimes both schools were 
present ; and on that identical occasion w^e have a composite 
metaphysics promulgated, which exhibited, most consistently, 
doctrines of Swedenborg and Fourier, jumbled in liberal 
and extraordinary confusion. This is, in epitome, about the 
whole history of such agitations. The weak Clairvoyant falls 
naturally into the hands of knaves who are superior to him in 
physical vitality. He becomes, first, the medium of their 
vague and feeble intellection ; and then, as attention is at- 


20 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


tracted by the notoriety they know well how* to produce, the 
medium'*'* becomes gradually surrounded by the enthusiasts 
of every school ; and as he is brought into their various Odic 
spheres, he pronounces the creed of each in his morbidly illu- 
minated language, and it sounds to the mob like inspiration. 

There is no greater nonsense; men are inspired through 
natural laws. But this comparatively innocuous character, 
which we have thus far stepped aside to indicate, is nothing 
compared to the first specimen of this Clairvoyant type which 
we have classified. This, it will be remembered, is the animal 
born with feeble spirituality, but vigorous physique, which is, 
at the same time, intensely sympathetic. These, as we have 
said, are the infernal natures ; for, possessing no life outside the 
lowei animal passions, self is to them the close centre of all 
being, and their Odic sensitiveness a vampire-absorption, the 
horrible craving of which, not content with the mere exhaustion 
of the animal life of the victim, by wanton provocations, drinks 
up soul and mind to fill the beastly void of their own. These 
worse than ghouls, that live upon the dying rather than the 
dead, possess some fearfully dangerous and extraordinary 
powers. 

Vampirism, as a superstition, prevailed, not many years ago, 
like a general pestilence, throughout the countries of Servia and 
Wallachia. Whole districts, infected by this horrible disease, 
were desolated; people grew wild with terror, and, in their 
savage ignorance, committed monstrous sacrilege upon the 
sanctities of burial. Bodies that had rested quietly in their 
graves for ten, twenty, and even eighty days, were dragged 
forth, to have stakes driven through their chests; and if any 
blood was found, they were burned to ashes. 


INTRODUCTION. 


21 


The belief was, that the deceased, when living, had been 
bitten by a human vampire, which, coming forth from its grave 
by night, had sunk its white teeth in his throat, and drunk his 
blood, thereby causing a lingering death ; in which he was also 
doomed to the hideous fate of becoming a vampire, after his 
burial. 

The bodies of vampires, when dug up, presented a perfectly 
natural appearance ; and, even in those cases where the scarf- 
skin peeled off, a new skin was found underneath, and new 
nails formed on the fingers. The vital blood was found in the 
heart, lungs, and viscera, exhibiting the conditions of perfect 
health. How the vampire got out of his grave, without 
scratching a hole, does not appear. 

Thus we find, in modern vampirism, a strange compound of 
ancient superstition with well-known scientific truths. The 
vampire is the counterpart of the ancient ghoul, with the simple 
transfer of the habits of the vampire-bat to its identity. These 
are then connected with the fact, well known to the medical 
profession, that persons have been buried, supposed to be dead, 
who, in reality, had only fallen into what is called the death- 
trance ; and who, had they been left above ground for a suffi- 
cient period, would have probably resuscitated of themselves. 
That they have done so after burial, is a familiar fact ; since 
bodies exhumed, long after, have been found to have changed 
their position in the coffin. How long bodies, thus inconsider- 
ately buried, retain a resemblance to the normal conditions of 
life, has not been fully ascertained. 

We have here the historical origin of what is called vam- 
pirism ; but there are certain phenomena of this fearful infec- 


22 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


tion, closely resembling those which we have attributed to the 
Spiritual Vampire. 

Vampirism is clearly a disease of the nervous S3^stem ; it 
being first excited through the imagination of ignorance and 
superstition. The nerves, then aflfected through the odic me- 
dium, lose their balance, and the mind constantly playing 
within the circle of the one thought of horror, a rapid and pre- 
mature decline is the immediate consequence. 

The infection of which the victim died remaining still within 
the odic medium of the sphere it occupied, passes into the 
nerves of others, who die also ; and thus the disease spreads like 
any other epidemic. But mark — whence the true origin of this 
superstition of the ghoul and the vampire, so universal in the 
world ? Is it not that mankind, everywhere, has felt, with an 
unconscious shuddering, the presence of the spiritual vampire ? 
The instincts of the masses have, in their superstitions, fore- 
shadowed all the great discoveries of science. Has it not been, 
that they have felt the hideous incubus always ; but not being 
able, through any connected series of observations, to discover 
the real cause of their dread and suffering, have given its 
nearly identical attributes a “local habitation and a name” 
among their superstitions ? 

What we have termed the Spiritual Vampire, is a scientific 
fact — we believe as much so as the bat- vampire ; and that it 
feeds, not alone upon the living, but upon the spiritually dead ; 
that originally, so far as its spiritual entity is concerned, it too 
comes forth from its sensual charnal to feed upon the soul- 
blood of mankind. This may seem a horrible picture, but we 
cannot consent to withdraw it. These records were made under 
a sense of duty to mankind ; and if they should ever see the 


INTRODUCTION. 


23 


light, it must be as they have been written. We dare not reveal 
all that vre know of this thing — we can only venture to say 
enough to arouse men in amazement, at the realisation of what • 
they have always known and felt to exist, without having ex- 
pressed it. No mortal mind could have conceived such possi- 
bilities, even in hell, much less in actual life. 

Amidst the profound securities of the best-ordered house- 
holds in the world, unless a strict eye be had to such facts and 
phenomena as we have adverted to and shall describe, the most 
insidious and fatal corruptions of the bodies and souls of your 
children, your wives, and your sisters, may creep in, while 
there is no dream of wrong or danger. If we shock you, it is 
to put you somewhat upon your guard against the many evils, 
concealed under the apparent harmless approaches of the 
viciously-purposed manipulator, or the covert practiser upon 
the odic or sympathetic vitality of the pure and unsuspecting. — 
We will abide the issue. 

Milton clearly had vampirism in his thought when he wrote — 

“ Clotted by contagion, 

Imbodied and imbruited, till quite lost 
The divine property of their first being — 

Such are those thick and gloomy shadows damp, 

Oft seen, in charnal-vaults and sepulchres. 

Lingering and sitting by a new-made grave.^' 



SPIRITUAL vampirism; 


OB, 


THE HISTORY OF ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


CHAPTER I. 

THE GIRLHOOD OF ETHERIAL. 

“ Be thou a spirit of health, or goblin damned 

In a mean and sterile district of Vermont, which shall be 
nameless, but which exhibits on every side stretches of bare 
land, with here and there the variety of clumps of gnarled and 
stunted oaks, Etherial Softdown was born. If mountains give 
birth to heroes, what ought to have been the product of a low- 
lying land like this, on whose dreary basins the summer’s sun 
wilted the feeble vegetation, and the bleak winds of winter 
WTestled fiercely wdth the scrubby oaks, whose crooked and 
claw-like limbs seemed talons of some hideous, gaunt and 
reptile growth ? 

On the edge of one of the most desolate of these stretches, 
and beneath the shelter of the most ugly of these demonised 
oaks, were scattered the storm-blackened sheds of a miserable 
hamlet, in one of which, for there were no degrees in their 
comfortless dilapidation, the family of our heroine, the Softdowns, 
resided, and another yet smaller and at some distance apart from 
the rest, was occupied by her father, who was a shoemaker, as 
3 ( 25 ) 


26 SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 

a workshop. This was one of those strange, out-of-the-way, 
starved and dismal looking places that you sometimes stumble 
upon in our prosperous land — which ought long since to have 
been deserted with the vanished cause of the temporary pros- 
perity which had given it birth — but in which the people seem 
to be petrified into a morbid serenity of endurance, and look as 
if under the spell of some great Enchanter they awaited his 
awakening touch. 

The child, which was the birth of a coarsely organised 
mother, was as drolly deformed with its squint eye and stoop- 
ing shoulders as fancy could depict the elfin genius of such 
a scene. Dirty, bedraggled and neglected, with unkempt locks 
tangled and writhing like snakes about her face, and sharp, gray 
animal eyes gleaming from beneath, the ill-conditioned creature 
darted impishly hither and yon amidst the hamlet hovels, or 
peering from some thicket of weird oaks, started the stolid 
neighbors with the dread that apparitions bring. 

Indeed, so wilful, unexpected and eccentric were her move- 
ments, that the people, in addition to regarding the oaf-like child 
with a half feeling of dread, gave her the credit of being half- 
witted as well. There was a hungry sharpness in her eye that 
made them shrink ; a furious, raging, craving lust for something, 
they could not understand what, which startled them beyond 
measure ; for, as in their stagnant lives, they had never been 
much troubled with souls themselves, they could not understand 
this soul-famine that so whetted those fierce eager eyes. 

The father, Softdown, who appears to have been something 
more developed than the mother, and to have possessed a gro- 
tesque and rugged wit, more remarkable for its directness than 
its delicacy, became the sole instructor and companion of the 
distraught child, who readily acquired from him an uncouth 
• method of enouncing trite truisms unexpectedly, which was to 
constitute in after lif? one of her chief, because most successful 
weapons. 

Etherial early displayed a passion for acquiring not know- 


ETHERIAL SOPTDOWN. 


27 

ledge, but a facility of gibberish, which proved exhausting 
enough to the shallow receptacles around her, especially as her 
mode of getting at the names and properties of things so closely 
resembled the monkey’s method of studying physical laws. 
She had first to burn her fingers before she could be made to 
comprehend that fire was hot, but that was enough about fire 
for this wise child ; she remembered it ever after as a physical 
sensation, and therefore it had ever after a name for her ; and so 
with all other experiences, they were to her sensational, not spi- 
ritual or intellectual. The name of a truth could come to her 
with great vividness through a blow or pain of whatever cha- 
racter that might be purely physical, but through no higher 
senses, for these she did not yet possess. Of a moral sense she 
seemed now to develope no more consciousness than any other 
wild animal, but in her the memory of sensation took the place 
of mind and soul. 

Thus passed the girlhood of our slattern oaf — shy and sullen 
— avoiding others herself, and gladly avoided by them, with 
the single exception of her father, from whom her strong imita- 
tive or sympathetic faculty was daily acquiring a rough, keen 
readiness of repartee, in the use of which she found abundant 
home-practice in defending herself against the smarting malig- 
nity of the matron Softdown, who charmingly combined in her 
person and habits all and singly the cleanly graces of the fish- 
wife. 

At sixteen, with no advance in personal loveliness, with pas- 
sions fiercely developed, a mind nearly utterly blank, a taste for 
tawdry finery quite as drolly crude as that displayed by the 
plantation negresses of the South, and manners so fantastically 
awkw’ard and eccentric as to leave the general impression that 
she was underwitted, Etherial suddenly married a lusty and 
good-looking young Quaker, threw off her bedraggled plumes, 
and became a member of that prim order. 

Now her career commences in earnest, for this was the first 
great step in her life in which she seems to have attained to 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


28 • 

some gleams of the knowledge of that extraordinary power of 
Odic irradiation and absorption which was afterwards to be ex- 
ercised with such remarkable results. 

She did not make her great discovery without comprehending 
its meaning quickly. She first perceived that, day by day, she 
grew more comely to look upon — that her figure was becoming 
erect, and losing its harsh angularities — the pitiless obliquity 
of her features growing more reconciled to harmonious lines — 
and last, and most astounding, that the immediate result of the 
contact of marriage had been a rapid increase of her own spi- 
ritual and mental illumination, accompanied as well by a cor- 
responding decline on the part of the husband in both these 
respects. 

Here was a secret for you with a vengeance! Like an 
electric flash, a new light burst upon Etherial ; and, as there 
was only one Jfeeling of which her being w’as capable tow'ards 
man, she chuckled over the delicious secret which now opened 
out before her with a terrible gloating. 

Glorious discovery ! Hah ! the spiritual vampire might feed 
on his strength — might grow strong on this cannibalism of the 
Soul ! and what of him if she dragged him down into idiocy ? 
Served him right ! Did Etherial care that his spiritual death 
must be her life ? She laughed and screamed with the joy of 
unutterable ferocity ! Eureka ! Eureka ! They shall all be nly 
slaves ! They taunt me with being born without a soul, with 
being underwitted ! I shall devour souls hereafter by the hun- 
dreds! I shall grow fat upon them! We shall see who has 
the wit ! Their thoughts shall be my thoughts, their brains shall 
work for me, their spirits shall inform my frame ! Ah, glorious ! 
glorious ! I shall live on souls hereafter ! I shall go up and 
down in the land, seeking whom I may devour ! Delicious ! 
Delectable Etherial ! 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


29 


CHAPTER II. 

SCENES IN THE GOTHAM CARAVANSARIE. 

And all around her, shapes, wizard and brute. 

Laughing and wailing, grovelling, serpentine. 

Showing tooth, tusk, and venom-bag, and sting ! 

0, such deformities I Endymion. 

In Barclay Street, New York, years ago, flourished, at No. 63, 
that famous caravansarie of all the most rabid wild animals on 
the Continent, who styled themselves Reformers and New-light 
People, Come-outers, Vegetarians, Abolitionists, Amalgama- • 
tionists, &c. &c., well known to fame as the “ Graham House.” 
Here, any fine morning, at the breakfast-table, you might meet 
a dozen or so of the most boisterous of the then existing or 
embryo Reform notorieties of the day. Mark, we say notorie- 
ties^ for that is the word. 

From the Meglatherium Oracle, whose monstrous head, co- 
vered with a mouldy excrescence, answering for hair, which 
gave it most the seeming of a huge swamp-born fungus of a 
night — who sat bolting his hard-boiled eggs by the dozen, with 
bran-bread in proportion, washing them down with pints of 
diluted parched-corn coffee — even to the most meagre, hungry- 
eyed, and talon-fingered of the soul-starved World-Reformers, 
that stooped forward amidst the babble, and, between huge 
gulps of hot meal mush, croaked forth his orphic words — they 
were all one and alike — the mutterers of myths made yet more 
misty by their parrot-mouthings of them ! 

Here every crude, ungainly crotchet that ever possessed igno- 
rant and presumptuous brains ; here every wild and unbroken 
hobby that ever driveller or madman rode, was urged together, 
pell-mell, in a loud-voiced gabbling chaos. Here the negro 
squared his uncouth and musky- ebon personalities beside the 
3 "“ 


80 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


fair, frail form of some lean, rectangular-figured spinster-devotee 
of amalgamation from New England. 

Here the hollow-eyed bony spectre of an old bran-bread dis- 
ciple stared, in the grim ecstacy of anticipation, at the ruddy 
cheeks of the new convert opposite, whose lymphatic, well- 
conditioned corporation shivered with affright, as he met those 
ravin-lit eyes, and a vague sense of their awful meaning first 
possessed him, as his furtive glance took in the sterile ‘‘ spread” 
upon the table, to which he had been ostentatiously summoned 
for ‘‘ a feast.” 

Here some Come-outer Quaker, with what had been, at best, 
cropped hair, might be seen with the crop now’ shaven yet more 
close to his bullet-head, in sign of his greater accession in spi- 
ritual strength beyond the heathen he had left behind, sitting 
side by side with some New-light or Phalanxterian apostle, with 
his long, sandy, carroty, or rather golden locks, as he chooses to 
style them, cultivated down his back in a ludicrously impious 
emulation of the revered “Christ Head” of the old Italian 
painters. 

Here the blustering peace-man and professed non-resistant, 
railed with a noisy insolence, rendered more insufferably insult- 
ing in the precise ratio of exemption from personal accountability 
claimed by his pusillanimous doctrines. Here too, a notorious 
Abolitionist, with his tallow-skinned and generally-disgusting 
face, roared through gross lips his vulgar anathemas against the 
South, which had foolishly canonised this soulless and meddle- 
some non-resistant ruffian, in expressing their readiness to hang 
him, should he be caught within their territory. 

Here the weak and puling sectary of some milk-and-water 
creed rolled up his rheumy eyes amidst the din, and sighed for 
horror of a “ sad, wicked world.” Here the sharp animal eyes, 
the cool effrontery and hard-faced impudence of ignoramus Pro- 
fessors of all sorts of occult sciences, ologies, and isms, met 
you, with hungry glances that seemed searching for “ the green ” 
in your eye ; and mingled with the whole, a sufficiently spicy 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


31 


sprinkle of feminine “Professors,” of the same class, whose bold 
looks and sensual faces were quite sufficient offsets to the extreme 
etherialisation of their spiritualized doctrines. 

Here, in a w^ord, the blank and ever-shocking glare of harm- 
less and positive idiocy absolutely would escape notice at all, or 
be mistaken for the solid repose of common sense, in contrast 
with the unnatural sultry wildness of the prevailing and predo- 
minating expression ! 

But this menagerie of mad people held caged, in one of its 
upper rooms, the object of immediate interest. On entering 
the apartment, which was an ordinary boarding-house bed- 
chamber, a scene at once shocking and startling was presented. 
A female, seemingly about thirty-three, was stretched upon a 
low cot-bed, near the middle of the floor, while on the bed and 
upon the floor were scattered napkins, which appeared deeply 
saturated with blood, with which the pillow-case and sheet were 
also stained. A napkin was pressed with a convulsive clutch 
of the hands to her mouth, into which, with a low, suffocating 
cough, which now and then broke the silence, she seemed to be 
throwing up quantities of blood from what appeared an alarm- 
ing hemorrhage. 

A gentleman, whose neat apparel and fresh benevolent face 
somehow spoke “ physician !” leaned over the woman, with an 
expression of anxiety, which appeared to be subdued by great 
effort of a trained will. He bent lower, and in an almost whis- 
pered voice, said : 

“ My dear madam, you must restrain yourself. This hemor- 
rhage continues beyond the reach of any remedies, so long as 
you permit this violent excitement of your maternal feelings to 
continue. Let me exhort you to patience — to bear the neces- 
sary evils of your unfortunate condition with more patience !” 

The only answer was a slow despairing shake of the head, 
accompanied by a deep hysterical groan, which seemed to flood 
the napkin at her mouth wdth a fresh effusion of blood, wffiich 
now trickled between her fingers and down upon her breast. 


32 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


The humane physician turned, with an uncontrollable expression 
of horrified sympathy and alarm upon his face, and snatching a 
clean napkin from the table, gently removed the saturated cloth 
from the clutching pressure of her fingers, and tenderly wiping 
the blood from her mouth and person, left the clean one in her 
grasp. 

“Be calm! be calm — I pray you! you must some day 
escape his persecutions. You have friends ; they will assist 
you to obtain a divorce yet, and rescue your child from his 
clutches. Do, pray now, be calm !” The voice of the good 
man trembled with emotion while he spoke, and the perspiration 
started from his forehead. 

At this instant the door was suddenly thrown open, and a tall, 
gaunt man, with a very small round head, leaden eyes, and a 
wide ungainly mouth, with a projecting under jaw, singularly 
expressive of animal stolidity, paused on the threshold and 
coolly looked around the room. The woman sprang forward 
at the sight, as if to rise, while a fresh gush of blood poured 
from her mouth, bedabbling her fingers and the sheet. The 
physician instinctively seized her to prevent her rising, but, re- 
sisting the pressure by which he gently strove to restore her 
head to the pillow, she retained her half-erect position, and with 
eyes that had suddenly become strangely distorted, or awry in 
their sockets, she glared towards the intruder for an instant, and 
then slowly raising her flickering hand, which dripped with her 
own blood, she pointed at him, and muttered, in a sepulchral 
voice, that, besides, seemed choking : 

“ That is he ! see him ! see him ! There stands the monster 
who would rob me of my babe, as he daily robs me of money.” 
Here the blood gushed up again, and she was for a moment 
suffocated into silence, as the object of her denunciation 
stood perfectly unmoved, while a cold smile half lit his leaden 
eyes. This seemed to fill the apparently dying woman with 
renewed and hysterical life. She raised herself yet more erect, 
and still pointing with her bloody, quivering finger, while her 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


33 


head tossed to and fro, and the distorted eyes glared staringly 
out before her, she spoke in a gasping, uncertain way, as if 
communing with herself. “The wretch taunts me! my mur- 
derer dares to sneer 1 O God ! must this always continue ? 
must that brute always follow me up and down in the land, to 
rob me of the money that I earn — to be my tyrant, my jailor! 
He will not give me money to pay postage even, out of that I 
earn abundantly, while he is earning nothing. He will not give 
me clothes to keep me decent, while I earn enough. He will 
not give my child shoes to wear, though he is trying to take her 
from me !” 

“ That is a lie, Etherial ! you know I gave the child a new 
pair yesterday !” gruffly interposed the man at this stage of the 
deeply tragic soliloquy, while he stepped forward towards the 
bed. A choking scream followed, and the blood was spattered 
over the spread as she fell back screaming — 

“ Take him away ! take him away ! He is killing me with 
his brutality !” and then her head sank in sudden collapse upon 
the pillow, and the face, which had heretofore looked singularly 
natural in color, for one in such a dreadful strait from hemor- 
rhage, turned livid pale, while the blood continued to pour upon 
the pillow from the corners of the relaxed mouth. 

The poor physician, whose frame had been shivering with 
intense excitement during this interview, sprang erect, as the 
form of what he supposed to be a corpse fell heavily from his 
arms, and with the natural indignation of a feeling man, fully 
roused at what he considered the murderous brutality of the hus- 
band, rushed forward, and seizing him furiously by the collar, 
shook and choked him in a perfect ecstacy of rage, shouting, at 
the same time — 

“ Unnatural beast ! monster ! You have killed that poor 
child at last ! murdered your own wife, whom you swore to 
nourish and protect ! Infernal villain ! you ought to be drawn 
and quartered — hanging is too good for you! You saw the 
terrible condition of the poor victim of your brutalities when 
you came, yet you persisted ! In the name of humanity, I send 


34 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


you hence! Death is too light punishment for you !” and he 
hurled the unresisting wretch — who, by this time, had grown 
perfectly black in the face under the rough handling of this 
roused and indeed infuriate humanity — staggering out of the 
door — and closing it upon him, he proceeded to apply such 
restoratives as on an examination the real condition of the 
patient suggested. 

A short and anxious investigation proved it to be rather a 
state of syncope than actual death ; and, with a full return of 
all his professional caution, skill and coolness, he applied him- 
self to the restoration of his patient, with a heart greatly re- 
lieved by the discovery that the result he so much dreaded was 
not yet, and hugging to his kindly breast the consolation 
“ while there is life there is hope 1’^ He paid no attention to 
clamorous knocks for admission and loud-talking excitement, 
which the violence of the preceding scene had no doubt caused 
in alarming the house. In a short time the good doctor cau- 
tiously unbolted the door and came forth from the room, tread- 
ing as though on egg-shells. After leaving careful instructions 
with the landlady that his patient, who now slept, should under 
no pretence be disturbed, most especially by the husband, until 
his return, as her present repose might prove a matter of life 
and death, he left the house, promising to call again in two 
hours. 

For one hour the w’oman lay calm and motionless on her gory 
bed, as if in catalepsy, when to a low, peculiar knock at the 
door, she sprang up, wide awake, and in the apparent full pos- 
session of her faculties. 

“ Who?” she asked, in a quick, firm tone, as she threw the 
hair back from her eyes. 

To the low response, ‘‘ I, love !” she stepped quickly from the 
bed and snatched a shawl from the back of a chair, and by 
several rapid sideway movements of her feet at the same time, 
thrust the bloody napkins which strewed the floor beneath the 
bed, where they would be out of sight, and by a movement 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


35 


almost as swift, threw a clean spread” over the blood-stained 
pillows and sheet, then drawing her large shawd closely over 
the stained dressing-gown in which she had risen, she rushed 
first to the glass, and smoothed her hair with an activity that 
was positively amazing, and then to the door, which she un- 
bolted on the inside — showing that she must have risen to bolt 
it immediately as the doctor passed out — and admitted a man 
who was in waiting. 

“Ah, ray soul’s sister! my Heaven-bride I how is thy 
spiritual strength this evening?” and at the same time, as her 
yielding form sank into his outspread arms, he pressed her lips 
with his, adding, “I salute thy chaste spirit!” 

“ Brother of my soul, I was weary, but now I am at rest. I 
was wounded and fainting by the way, but the good Samaritan 
has come !” and she turned her eyes upward to his with a 
melting expression of confiding abandon. 

“ Angel !” accompanied by a closer and convulsive clasp, 
was the response. 

“ What do they say of pcyor me again, to-day, those cruel 
wicked people outside ?” she asked, with eyes still reverentially 
upraised to his, as they moved slowly with clasped arms towards 
the cot, cm the side of which they sat, she still leaning against 
his bosom. 

“ My good sister, they say what evil spirits always prompt 
men to say of the good, who, like the Prophets, are sent to be 
stoned and persecuted on earth. You should not regard such. 
There are those who know you in the spirit, to whom it has 
been revealed through the spiritual sense, that you are good and 
true, as well as in th-e right, and through such, you will find 
strength of the Father.” 

“ Oh, you are so strong in spiritual mightiness that you do not 
sympathise with the weaknesses of we humbler mortals! I 
wonder, indeed, how you can forgive them ?” and her downcast 
eyes were furtively raised to his. The man wore his hair thrown 
back over his head and behind his ears. He drew himself up 


36 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


slightly at this, and stroked back his locks, then placing his 
hand with patriarchal solemnity upon her bowed head, proceeded 
in a somewhat louder tone. “ My simple child — my soul-sister, 
I should say, you are hardly upon the threshold of the true wis- 
dom. Your knowledge of the law of spiritual correspondence 
is yet too incomplete for you to understand how entirely good 
has been mistaken for evil, and evil confounded with good in 
the world. For instance — it is called evil by the ignorant 
world, for a brother man to caress thee in the spirit as I have 
caressed thee but now. The imaginations of a world that lieth 
in evil are impure. ‘Evil to him who evil thinks !’ The great 
doctrine of correspondence teaches that there are two lives — the 
spiritual and the animal. The passions of the animal are in the 
fleshly lusts ; those of the spiritual are in no wise such, they 
are in the Heavenly sphere, they are of love and wisdom. 
Thus, my caress in this Heavenly sphere is of no sin to thee, 
for by and through it I convey to you, my spiritual sister, the 
strength of love and wisdom for which your heart yearns. 
Thus—” 

As he stooped his head to renew the unresisted caress, the 
door flew open again, and the man with the wide mouth, the 
hideous chin and the leaden eye, stood again upon the threshold, 
and as the affrighted pair looked up they saw he was backed by 
the curious faces of half-a-dozen chambermaids, jealous of the 
honor of the house, flanked by the indignant landlady and a 
score of prying, curious, sharp-eyed faces, which might be 
recognised at a glance as belonging to those pickled seraphs of 
reform, known as “ free-spoken” spinsters in New England. 

“ There, they are at it !” shouted the man with the gaping 
mouth. “ I told you so ! I told you that Professor was always 
kissing her !” 

“Yes!” 

“There they' are, sure enough!” 

“ I always thought so !” 

“ The honor of my house !” bristled the landlady, striding 
forward. “ I did not expect this of you. Professor !’^ 


ETHEEIAL SOFTDOWN. 


3T 


“ Madam !” said the gentleman with his hair behind his ears, 
striding forward as he released the suddenly collapsed and 
seemingly lifeless form he had just held within his embrace, and 
which fell back now heavily upon the pillow-spread, which was 
instantly discolored by a new gush of blood from the mouth. 
‘‘ I w^as administering, with all my zeal, spiritual comfort to this 
poor, sick and dying sister, when you burst in ! See her con- 
dition now !” 

He waved his hand towards the tragic figure. The Pro- 
fessor” occupied a parlor on the first floor, beside two bed-rooms 
adjoining this, and being on the palmy heights of his renown 
and plenitude of purse, it was not convenient for the landlady 
to quarrel with him at present. “ Ah, if that is the case. Pro- 
fessor, I beg you to pardon us. The husband of this woman 
has misrepresented you and your beneficent motives, and 
accuses you of all sorts of improprieties. We came up, at his 
urgency, to see for ourselves, and the shocking condition in 
which we find her now, proves that the ravings of the husband 
are, as she has always represented them, insane.” 

“ I’ve seen you kissing her before !” roared the husband, 
advancing threateningly upon the Professor, who, however 
spiritual in creed, did not now appear particularly spirited, as 
he turned very pale, retreated backwards, and holding up his 
two trembling hands imploringly, exclaimed — ^‘Hold! hold! 
my dear brother! It was a spiritual kiss! I meant you no 
harm, nor that angel who lies there dying ! Our kiss was pure 
and holy as the new snow. Hold him! hold him! Don’t let ^ 
him hurt me ! I am a non-resistant ! I am for peace !” 

. “ Your holy kisses ! I don’t believe in your holy kisses !” 
gnashed the enraged husband, still following him up with war- 
like demonstrations; but here the easily appeased landlady 
interposed once more, to save the honor of her house in pre- 
venting a fight. 

‘‘ No blows in my house !” she shrieked, as she threw her- 
self between the parties. “ The Professor is a man of God, 

4 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


38 

and shall not be abused here ; shame on you, Aminadab, with 
your poor, persecuted wiie there, dying before your face ! Every- 
body will believe what she says about your persecutions now !” 

Bah, you don’t know that woman ! she ’s no more dying 
than you are!” grunted the fellow, whose wrath fortunately 
seemed to be of that kind that a straw might turn it aside. All 
the women rolled up their eyes and lifted their two hands at this 
speech. 

“ What a brute !” 

‘‘The horrid, murdering wretch! and she bleeding at the 
mouth, and from the lungs, too !” 

“ Lord save the poor woman’s soul, with a husband like 
that!” 

And other speeches of like character were ejaculated by all 
the women present. 

At this moment a fresh effusion of blood, accompanied by a 
low groan, from the mouth of the suffering patient, flooded the 
clean spread with its purple current, and the horrified females 
rushed from the room, screaming — 

“ He ’s killed her at last, poor thing !” 

“ Where ’s the doctor ?” 

“ She ’s dying of his brutality — run for the doctor !” At this 
moment, with a hasty and heavy step, that gentleman was heard 
advancing along the passage, followed by a crowd of pale, 
frightened-looking women. He strode into the room. 

“ What now? — what’^ to pay?” and his eye fell on the trem- 
bling form of the brutal husband, who had by no means for- 
gotten the rough handling he had received, and now skulked 
and quailed like a whipped cur, as his eye saw the instant 
thunder darken on the brow of the doughty doctor. 

“You here again — you brutal fellow ? I shall instantly bind 
you over to keep the peace toward this unfortunate woman, 
whose life you are daily endangering by your brutalities. Take 
yourself off, sir !” Aminadab waited for no second invitation, 
but availed himself of the open doorway. 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


39 


Without noticing the spiritual professor, who had drawn him- 
self into as small space as possible in one corner, the good man 
advanced to the side of his patient with an anxious, flurried 
manner. 

“ What can that besotted wretch have been doing to her 
again ?” and he gently placed his fingers upon her pulse, and 
shook his head gravely as he did so. 

“Very low! very low, indeed! — -nearly absolute syncope 
again ! This is horrible ! How sorry I am that I was com- 
pelled to leave her for a moment.” 

“ Is she really in danger, doctor ?” asked the spiritual pro- 
fessor, advancing with recovered assurance. 

“ Who are you, sir?” he said, looking up sharply. “One 
of these officious fools, I suppose?” Then glancing his eye 
around at the crowded doorway, he straightened himself hastily, 
and exclaimed — 

“ Leave the room, all of you — she must be quiet — I wish to 
be alone with my patient! Leave the room, sir, I say!” in a 
sterner voice, as the spiritual professor hesitated on his back- 
ward retreat. 

“ I — I — I p-pro-test against the impropriety!” he stammered 
forth, looking back at the women, with a very pale face, as he 
accelerated his backward movement before the steady stride of 
the resolute doctor. 

“ Out with you, sir — I will answer for the proprieties in this 
case !” 

The door was slammed in the ashy face of the spiritual pro- 
fessor, and securely doubled-locked before the doctor returned 
to the bedside of his patient. 

The bleeding from the mouth had now ceased. All the 
usual remedies in such cases having so far entirely failed, the 
puzzled doctor had come to the final conclusion that the hemor- 
rhage — be its seat where it might — was only to be subdued by 
a restoration of the patient to the most perfect repose. Sleep, 
calm, unbroken sleep, to his sagacious judgment and sensibili- 


40 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


ties, seemed to offer the sole alternative to death. He had 
been impressed by his patient that her constitutional tendencies 
were, by a sad ihheritance, towards consumption, and the loss 
from the lungs, of such quantities of blood as he had witnessed, 
was well calculated to fill his professional mind with horror and 
dread. The case had thus appeared to him a fearfully uncertain 
and delicate one, and this sense may fully account for the stern 
and unusual procedure of turning even the husband out of the 
room on the two occasions we have mentioned. 

As her physician, he felt himself bound to protect his helpless 
patient against those moral causes of irritation which he had 
been led to believe existed, not only from her reluctant disclo- 
sures, but from what he had himself witnessed. Believing that 
her beastly husband was the chief and immediate cause of this 
fatal irritation, he had felt himself justified in his rough course 
towards him, and was now fully and resolutely determined to 
protect what he considered a death-bed — providentially thrown 
into his charge — inviolate from farther annoyance, from what- 
ever quarter, at least so long as he held the professional respon- 
sibility. In this resolute feeling, and as the day was warm, he 
threw off his coat, raised all the windows, and sat himself quietly 
down beside his patient to watch for results. 

The eyes of the kind man very naturally rested upon the 
object of his solicitude, and after the first excitement of anx- 
iety was over, and he had settled calmly into a contemplative 
mood, he first became conscious that there was something 
strangely fascinating in the position of the nearly inanimate 
figure. He had never before thought of the being before him 
as other than a very plain, but much-afflicted woman, by whose 
evident physical calamities, no less than her private sufferings, 
he had been strongly interested. 

She had told him her own story, and he had believed her, ■ 
thinking he saw confirmation enough in the conduct of those 
she accused of ill-treatment ; but the idea of regarding her as 
attractive in any material sense, had never for an instant crossed 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN// 41 

his pure soul. Now there was an indescribable something in 
her attitude, so expressive of passion, that, in the pulseless 
silence, he felt himself blush to have recognised it. 

Her arms, which he now remembered to have been hare in 
all his late interviews with her, were exquisitely rounded and 
beautifully white, and he could not but wonder that he had not 
before observed the strange contrast between them and the plain 
weather-beaten face. They looked startlingly voluptuous now, 
contrasted with the pallid cheek which rested on them, and the 
glossy folds of dark hair in which they were entangled. So 
strikingly indeed was this expression conveyed, that even the 
purple stains of blood upon the spread beneath would not 
divest him of the dangerous illusion. The good doctor felt the 
blood mount to his forehead in the shame of deep humiliation 
as he recognised in himself this wandering of thought. 

What! could it be that one so habitually pure in feeling as he, 
could permit the intrusion at such an hour of impure associa- 
tions ? Such things were unknown to his life, so disinterested, 
so spotless, so humane. What could it be that had caused 
such feelings to possess him thus unusually ? It could not be 
possible she was conscious of the position in which her body 
was thrown. Was there some strange spell about this woman 
— some mysterious power of sphere emanating from that still 
form, that crept into his blood and brain with the evil glow of 
these unnatural fires ? 

The poor doctor shuddered as he turned aside from the bed, 
and, with a soft step, glided to the window, and there seating 
himself, strove to recover the command of his thoughts by dis- 
tracting them with other objects in the busy street. 

The good man was on grievous terms with himself, as he 
continued to beat the devil’s tattoo on the window-sill with his 
heavy fingers. He felt alarmed, nay, even guilty. He knew 
not why. W e shall see I 

4 *= 


42 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE SYREN AND THE MOB. 

And after all the raskal many ran, 

Heaped together in rude rabblement. 

Spenser. 

What intricate impeach is this ? — 

I think you all have drunk of Circe^s cup ! 

Shakspeare. 

The woman continued, with calm, regular breathings, to 
sleep for several hours. The dusk of evening had now closed 
in, and yet her patient guardian sat silently watching her motion- 
less figure. A long and serene self-communion had gradually 
restored the excellent doctor to his ordinary equanimity, and he 
now, with untiring vigilance, awaited the changes that might 
supervene in the condition of the patient. 

After all his thinking on the subject, he found himself now 
no nearer comprehending the cause of the late unwonted dis- 
turbance of his habitual serenity than at the beginning. He 
had dealt harshly with himself, in endeavoring to account for it, 
and never dreamed of reproaching the feeble and wretched 
being before him, as in any degree the conscious agent of what 
he considered a weakness unpardonable in himself. 

With the natural proclivity of generous souls towards the ex- 
tremes, he had, in the plenitude of his self-reproach, proceeded 
to exalt the sleeping woman into an earth-visiting angel with 
wounded wings, the spotless purity of which the breath of his 
darkened thought had soiled. The poor, good-hearted doctor ! 

The silence of the room was now broken by a low exclama- 
tion of fright, accompanied by a slight movement of the patient. 
The doctor sprang forward softly to the bed-side. 

“ Who ? —what ? — where am I ? What has been happening 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


43 


asked the woman, with an expression of bewilderment and 
alarm. 

“ Nothing! nothing, my dear madam! I am here — you are 
safe — but you must not talk.” 

“ Where is he r is he gone she persisted in a wild, terrified 
manner. 

“ Yes, he is gone. He shall not come back to disturb you 
again. You must be quiet now, and get well. Please be calm, 
and trust in me.” 

“ Trust in thee .?” said the patient, in a voice which had in- 
stantly lost its vague tone. “ Trust in thee, thou minister of 
light, who hast come to my darkened pillow, to my bloody 
death-bed, to console me !” and here she clutched his hand. 

Trust thee — I would trust thee as I trust God !” and she 
pressed his hand to her heart. 

‘‘You must be silent, madam,” urged the physician, endeavor- 
ing to extricate his imprisoned hand, for he felt strange tin- 
glings along his veins, which alarmed his now penitent and 
vigilant spirit. She only shook her head, and clung with yet 
greater tenacity to his hand, and then, first raising it to her lips 
with a reverential kiss, she placed it upon the top of her head, 
with the palm outstretched, and signified her desire that he 
should keep it there, with a smile of entire beatitude. The 
doctor barely knew enough of mesmeric manipulations, to un- 
derstand that this laying-on of hands was commonly resorted to 
among the believers in the science, as a remedy for nervous 
headache. He could see no harm in the innocent formula, if it 
assisted the imagination in throwing off pain, and he very 
willingly humored his poor patient, in permitting his hand to 
remain there. 

In a moment or two a singular change came over the face and 
general physical expression of the woman, and the doctor, who 
had witnessed something of mesmeric phenomena, instantly re- 
cognised this as clearly presenting all the symptoms of such a 
case. He had mesmerised her by a touch, and it was not with- 


44 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


out a thrill of vague wonder that he awaited further develop- 
ments. 

There was a perfect silence of ten minutes’ duration, when 
the mesmerised patient began moving her lips as if in the effort 
to articulate. The curiosity of the doctor was now fully 
aroused — his will became concentrated — he desired to hear her 
speak ; in his unconscious eagerness, he willed that she should 
do so with all the energy of his firm nature ; and speak she did. 

“Happy! happy! Ah, I am content in this pure sphere! 
My soul can rest here !” a long pause, then suddenly a shudder 
vibrated through her frame, and she shrank back as one appalled 
by some spectral horror. 

“Ha! it is all dark now! I see! I see! his hand is red! 
red ! red ! red ! There is murder on this soul !” 

The doctor sprang up and back as if he had been shot. His 
face grew livid pale, and he trembled in every joint, while with 
chattering teeth he stammered — 

“ Woman ! Woman, how know you this ?” 

“I see it there — that huge red hand! Now all is red! 
There ! there ! I felt it must be so ! The pale and golden light 
breaks through! It spreads! It fills and covers everything! 
His heart did no murder — it was his hand ! He can be redeemed ! 
This soul is pure !” 

The poor doctor sank upon his chair and groaned heavily, 
while he covered his face with his hands. He spoke, in a few 
moments, in an almost inaudible tone, to himself, while the wo- 
man, who had suddenly opened her eyes, turned her head 
slightly, and watched him with a sharp attention. 

“ Alas ! alas ! how came this strange being in possession of 
the fatal secret of my life } I believed it buried in the oblivion 
of thirty years. My life of dedication to humanity, since, I 
thought might have atoned for that quick sad deed ! Yes ! I 
struck him ! O, my God — I struck him ! but the provocation 
was most fearful! Woman, who and what are you, that you 
should know this thing V* and with a vehement gesture he jerked 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


45 


his hands from before his eyes, and turning swiftly upon her, he 
met the keen, still glance of those watchful eyes, which shone 
through the subdued light of the room, steadily upon him. 
The doctor was astounded ! * He sprang to his feet again, ex- 
claiming angrily — 

“ What shallow trick is this ? You seemed but now in the 
mesmeric sleep, and mouthed to me* concerning my past life, 
and here you are, wide awake ! How came you with the secrets 
of my life ?” 

The woman answered feebly, and with a sob that at once 
touched the gentle-hearted doctor, and turned aside his wrath — 
You took your hand away — you would not let me speak. 
Place your hand upon my head again, and I will tell you all.” 

The troubled doctor re-seated himself with a shuddering 
reluctance, and renewed the manipulation. 

In a few moments she appeared again to have sank into the 
sleep, and commenced in that slow, fragmentary manner supposed 
to be peculiar to such conditions : 

“I see! The dark shadow is on this soul again! It is of 
anger and suspicion — they are both evil spirits ! They strive to 
make it wrong the innocent ! It is too holy and pure to yield ! 
I see the golden light fill all again ! The bloody hand is gone. 
No stain of crime remains upon this soul. It will be pardoned 
of God. This soul needs only human love. Through love it 
can be made free before God ! All the past will be forgiven 
then — the red stains will fade ! A sudden anger made it sin. 
Love can only intercede for this sin. Love will intercede ! It 
will be saved !” 

Here her voice became subdued into indistinct mutterings, 
and the doctor drew a long breath as he withdrew his hand — 

“ Singular woman ! How could all this have been revealed 
to her } She must commune with spirits in this state. My story 
is not known to any here. I never saw or heard of h^r, until sent 
for as a physician, to visit her in this house. Strange that this 
fearfully passionate and repented deed should thus rise up in my 


46 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


path, thousands of miles away, amidst strangers, who can know 
nothing of me ! Oh, my God ! my God ! Thou art indeed 
vengeful and just !” and the miserable man clasped his hands 
before his eyes and moaned. “ It was my first draught of love 
and life. He dashed it! I was delirious in my joy, while the 
beams rained from her eyes into my hungry soul — hungry of 
beauty and of bliss. He dashed it all, and in the hot blood of 
my darkened madness I slew him ! Oh, I slew him ! His 
shadow, that can never be appeased, though I have given body, 
and soul, and substance, to relieving the sufferings of ray race 
since that unhappy hour — it rises here again ! It haunts me I 
Yes ! yes I I feel that love alone can make me strong once more, to 
bear such tortures ! But have I not denied myself such dreams ? 
Have I not with dedicated heart walked humbly since in self- 
denying ways ? Have I not clothed the orphan, fed the poor 
and nursed the sick? Have I not ministered amidst pestilence, 
and held my life as of none account that I might bring good to 
others ? Can I be forgiven ? No ! no I The Pharisee recounts 
his holy deeds and thanks God that his life is not sinful as an- 
other man ! I am not to be forgiven ! I shall never know those 
dreams of love!” 

The strong man bowed his frame and shook with agony. 
Could he but have looked up, a keen, quick gleam from the eyes 
which had been so steadily fixed upon him during this painful 
soliloquy, would have struck him as conveying the ecstacy of a 
sainted spirit over a soul repentant — or of some other feeling 
quite as exultant. 

This curious scene was, however, most unexpectedly inter- 
rupted at this moment, by a loud yelling from the street below. 
The clamor was so sudden, and yet so angrily harsh, that both 
parties sprang forward in the alarm it caused — the woman, 
springing up into a sitting posture on the bed, and the doctor to 
go to the window. 

‘‘ What is it?” she exclaimed wildly, as she tossed back her 
hair. What do these cruel people want to do to me now ?” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


47 


The doctor, who saw at a glance the meaning of what was 
going on below, and the necessity of keeping his patient cool, 
turned to her, with a very quiet expression — 

‘‘ Do not be alarmed, madam. It is merely some disorderly 
gathering of rowdies,, in the street below. There is no danger 
to you — only do not get excited, or you will bleed again. I am 
here to protect you.” 

‘‘ Then I am safe !” was the fervid response, which, however, 
was followed by a roar so sullen and portentous, from the infu- 
riated mob underneath, as to leave some doubt of its truth even 
upon the mind of the doctor. 

“ Down with the amalgamation den !” 

“ Down with the saw-dust palace !” 

‘‘ Tear it down !” 

“ Let’s lynch the wretches !” 

The response to speeches of this sort, from single voices, 
would be a simultaneous burst of approbation from the great 
crowd, and a trampling and rush to get nearer the building. It 
seemed a formidable sight, indeed, to the doctor, as he looked 
down upon this living mass of men, surging like huge waves 
tossed against some cliff, while the torches, that many of them 
bore, glared fitfully upon the upturned, angry faces. 

A powerful voice, which rose above all the tumult, exclaimed 
with a hoarse oath, as the speaker turned for an instant towards 
the crowd, from the top of the front steps — 

“ Let us burst open the door and lynch every white person 
found with a negro. Here goes for the door !” and he threw 
himself furiously against it, while a perfect thunder-crash of 
roars attested the approbation of the dangerous mob. The door 
resisted for a moment, when there was a sudden yell from the 
outside of the mob, nearly a square distant— 

“ Here ! here ’s what ’ll do it ! pass ’em on !” and the alarmed 
doctor saw immediately the portentous gleam of fire-axes, which 
were being passed over the heads of the crowd towards the 
door, and in another instant the crash of the cutting would 


48 SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 

commence. The doctor, as we have seen, was a very prompt 
man. He thrust his head out of the window, and in a loud, 
commanding voice, shouted — 

Stop n’ 

The man at the doOr, who had just received the axe, and was 
in the act of wielding it, paused for an instant, to look up, while 
the whole sea of faces was raised toward the window, amidst a 
moment’? silence, of which the doctor instantly availed himself — 

‘‘ Gentlemen, do you war upon women ? I have a female 
patient here, in this room, at the point of death ! If you pro- 
ceed, you will kill her !” 

“ Who is she ?” shouted some one, while another voice, in a 
derisive tone, yelled out amidst screams of laughter — 

“ Is she Rose ? Rose ? de coal-brack Rose ? I wish I may be 
shot if I don’t lub Rose !” 

Amidst the thunders which followed, some one shouted from 
a distant part of the mob, to the man with the axe — 

“ Go on, Jim ! It’s all pretence with their sick women !” 

“ Down with the door — they don’t escape us that way ! Look 
out for your bones, old covey, when we catch you !” 

The axe was again swung back, but the doughty doctor still 
persisted — 

‘‘ Stop !” he shouted again, in a tone so startling for energy 
of command, that the axe was again lowered. 

‘‘ Are you Americans ? Have you mothers and sisters ?” 

‘ Yes, but they ain’t black gals !” gibed one of the mob, and 
set the rest into a roar once again. 

‘‘ I appeal to you as men — as brothers and fathers, do not 
murder my poor patient !” 

“ Who is that noisy fellow?” bellowed a brutal voice below. 

‘‘I am a physician ! I have nothing to do with this house 
or its principles ; I only beg to be permitted to save my patient !” 

“ What is your name, I say ?” bellowed the hoarse man again. 
“ Out with it ! We ’ll know you — some of us !” 

The name was mentioned. There was a momentary pause, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


49 


and a low murmur ran through the crowd ; then shout after shout 
of applauding huzzas. 

“We know you!” 

“ Just like him !” 

“Noble fellow I” 

“ The good doctor ! Huzza! huzza!” 

And so the cry went up on all sides, for the doctor’s reputa- 
tion for benevolemce was as wide as that of John Jacob Astor 
for the opposite trait. 

There seemed to be a vehement consultation among what 
appeared the leaders of the mob, which lasted but for a moment 
or two, when one who stood upon the top step looked up, and 
in a firm, respectful voice, said to the doctor — 

“ It ’s all right, sir, about you ! We shall let the women pass 
out ! But you must clear the house of them !” 

“ But it is dangerous to move my patient.” 

“We cannot help that, doctor ; we do this for your sake, not 
theirs, for they ought every one of them to be burned, and we 
are determined to abate the nuisance of this house. So hurry ' 
them along here quick, for the boys will not keep quiet long.” 

“Yes, hurry them women along; we’ll let them go this 
time.” 

“ All but that lecturing lady (?), who says that she would as 
soon marry a negro as a white man !” 

“Yes, all but her ; we want to be rid of such creatures ; let’s 
duck her in the Hudson.” 

“No, boys, we will make no distinction. We have pro- 
mised — let the woman go.” 

“ Down with the lecturing women and their black lovers !” 

“ Duck the hag! we’ll wash off the scent for her!” 

Cries such as these convinced the doctor that indeed no time 
was to be lost, particularly as the sound of the axe was now 
heard below in good earnest. Approaching the bed hastily, 
he took the shivering form of the panic-stricken woman, who 
had heard distinctly these last ominous cries, into his arms. 

5 


50 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


She clutched him with a desperate grip, while he hurried down 
the stairs. 

On the way, he met the Spiritual Professor in the passage, 
surrounded by the women of the house, who were clustered 
about him, in the seemingly vain hope of obtaining from him 
something of that ethereal consolation and strength, of which 
he was the so much vaunted Professor. Indeed, he himself 
now seemed the most woful, of all the whimpering, terrified 
group, in want of any kind of strength, whether spiritual or 
otherwise ; and his teeth literally chattered, as he clutched at 
the doctor’s passing arm. 

« Wh — wh — what shall we do ? They mean to burn the 
house, don’t they ?” 

“Do?” said the doctor, sternly, shaking off his grasp. 
“Try and be a man, if you’ve got it in you! Get these 
w^omen out of the house, and take yourself off on your spiritual 
legs as fast as you can, or you may make some ugly acquaint- 
ances.” 

The Professor still clung to his skirts. 

“ Oh Lord ! the doctrine of correspondences does not sanc- 
tion — ” 

“Go to the devil, with your correspondence, or I shall kick 
you out of my path I” roared the angry doctor, while the snivel- 
ling Professor, more alarmed than ever, slunk aside to let him 
pass. The crash and clatter from below now announced that 
the mob had effected an entrance from the street, and leaving 
the women, all screaming at the top of their lungs, around their 
doughty spiritual guide, he rushed on with his burden towards 
the front entrance, which had thus been taken by storm, and 
was now rapidly filling with excited men. Some were seizing 
the furniture, which they began to demolish, while others hur- 
ried forward to intercept him. 

“ It is the sick woman. Remember your promise ; let me 
pass.” 

“Yes, that’s the good doctor; let him pass, boys.” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


51 


‘‘No, not yet!” roared a burly-looking ruffian, pressing 
through the throng. “We must see who it is he has got there. 
Who is she ?” and he roughly dragged aside the shawl that par- 
tially covered her face. 

“Monster!” shouted the excited doctor, “the woman is 
dying! Make way! Let me pass!” 

“Not so fast!” said the ruffian, resisting his forward rush. 
“ I shall see ! I shall see ! Boys^ here she is ! By G — d, this 
is she, that lecture-woman ; she wants to marry a nigger, hah ! 
We won’t let her go.” 

. “ But you will !” said the doctor, releasing one arm, with 
wffiich he struck the ruffian directly in the mouth, and with a 
force that sent him reeling backwards. 

“ Good ! good !” shouted tw^enty voices ; “ served him right, 
doctor.” 

The fellow’^ had rallied instantly, and was rushing, like a wild 
bull, headlong upon the doctor, when several powerful men 
threw themselves between the two, seizing the ruffian at the 
same time. 

“No, Jim, you stand back!” said one of them, brandishing 
a heavy axe before his eyes. “You touch that gentleman again, 
and I’ll brain you !” 

“ It’s a shame !” interposed others. “ It’s the good- doctor 
Avho nurses the poor for nothing. Doubt if he gets a cent for 
that creature.” 

“Yes, if she was the devil’s dam herself, we promised the 
good man to let her go. Stand back, boys, and let the doctor 
pass.” 

An opening was accordingly formed, through which the 
doctor hastened to make his way. When he made his appear- 
ance at the door, he was greeted with three wild, hearty cheers 
for himself, and as many groans and hisses for the character of 
the woman whom he bore, the news of the identification of 
whom had instantly found its way to the outside^ 

Regardless of all this, and only congratulating himself upon 


SPIRITI/AL VAMPIRISM. 


52 

the prospect of getting his patient off alive, he pressed rapidly 
through the crowd, with the purpose of bearing her to the 
shelter of his own bachelor home. 

The mob now instantly occupied the building, which was 
gutted by them, and the shattered contents, along with its occu- 
pantSj men and women, roughly hurled into the street. Some 
of the former were very severely handled, and among the rest, 
the Spiritual Professor had his share of material chastening. 
The mob found him under a cot-bed, with three or four femi- 
nine disciples of his spiritual correspondences piled over him, 
or clinging distractedly to his nerveless limbs. 

They dragged him out by the heels, with his squalling cor- 
tege trailing after him, and finding that the occult professor of 
spiritualities had gone into a state of obliviousness, or rather 
fainted, they proceeded, in their solicitude for his recovery, to 
deluge his person with sundry convenient slops, which shall be 
nameless, and afterwards kicked him headlong into the street 
below, where the screaming boys pelted him with gutter-mud 
and rotten eggs, until, finding his spiritual legs, as he had been 
advised — it is to be supposed — of a sudden, he made himself 
scarce, down Barclay Street, in an inappreciable twinkle. 

In a word, the people, in this instance, as in many others, 
when they have found it necessary to take the laws of decency 
and common sense into their own sovereign hands, did the work 
of ridding themselves of this most detestable nuisance effect- 
ually. The Graham House was broken up, and although the 
pestilent nest of knaves and fools who most delighted there to 
congregate, have endeavored, in subsequent years, to reas- 
semble, and renew the ancient character of the place as their 
head-quarters, yet the attempt has only been attended with par- 
tial success. 

The blow was too decisive on this night ; for, although the 
walls were left standing, the proprietor was given clearly to 
understand, that the unnatural orgies of amalgamation would 
not be tolerated again by the community, under the decisive 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


53 

penalty of no one stone left standing upon the other, of the 
building. 

He took the hint, and it was about time ! It has been fairly 
conjectured by this time, from the glimpses we have taken of 
the interior, that the house was the scene of other vices than 
those implied in amalgamation merely. It will be seen in yet 
other words and years how much there was of real danger'to the 
well-being of society, in the doctrines taught and practised within 
its unhallowed walls. No one lesson could ever prove suffi- 
cient for these people ; they enjoy a fatal impunity even now, 
and we shall endeavor that men shall know them as they are ! 


CHAPTER IV. 

BOANERGES PHOSPHER, THE SPIRITUAL PROFESSOR. 

He strikes no coin, ^tis true, but coins new phrases, 

And vends them forth as knaves vend gilded counters. 

Which wise men scorn, and fools accept in payment. 

Shakspeare. 

None of these rogues and cowards, but Ajax is their fool ! 

Idem. 

That the world has dealt hardly by its heroes, is a truism we 
need not insist upon at this late day. But whether the world 
knows who its heroes are, is another question, and one more 
open to controversy. Now I insist that the world does not 
know, or else Boanerges Phospher, the Spiritual Professor, 
would long since have been stoned and persecuted into one of 
the holy company of saints and martyrs! 

There are several kinds of heroism heretofore known among 
men. There is the fierce, aggressive heroism of the soldier and 
conqueror — there is the ‘‘glib and oily” heroism of the politi- 
5 ^ 


54 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


cian — the calm, enduring heroism of the saint — the lofty, death- 
defying heroism of the patriot ; but it remains for modern times 
to record the brazen heroism of impudence. Impudence, too, 
has its grades and degrees — its ancient types and its more mo- 
dern ones — but as they all veil their brassy splendors, merging 
their separate rays in the central effulgence of our spiritual Co- 
lossus, we shall waive their particular enumeration in favor of 
the individualised impersonation of them all. 

Ah, verily — and this is he ! — our Spiritual Professor ! Born 
in Yankee-land, of course, the earliest feat of Boanerges Phos- 
phor — literally, according to his own account of it — was to pry 
up a huge stone upon one of the sterile paternal acres : for what 
purpose, would you suppose ? To place his feet upon the soil 
beneath, because the foot of no other man could have pressed it! 

A laudable ambition, truly, but one which, somehow, un- 
luckily, suggests that 

“ Fools may walk where angels fear to tread I” 

It was a necessary sequence to the career of this modern Co- 
lumbus of untrodden discovery, that we find his ‘‘ first appear- 
ance upon any stage” to have been, while so pitiably ignorant 
as to be barely able to read his own language by spelling the 
words, and write his own name execrably, as Professor of 
Elocution ! 

Admirable I admirable I Why make two bites of a cherry 
Why not step at once where no foot of such man ever trod 
before ? 

Shade of Blair! Look ye not askance at this daring intruder 
upon your classic company ! He intends you no harm ; he only 
means to re-fuse his brass back into copper s ! 

In lecturing on Elocution, our Professor, of necessity, gra- 
dually learned to read— with fluency, we m'ean— that is, he could 
‘^talk right eout,” like the head boy in a class, though it was 
in a nasal sing-song, more remarkable for its pietistic intonation 
than its rhythm. This was, no doubt, in a great measure owing 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


55 


to the facility of whining he had acquired, in his more juvenile 
experience, as a preacher of some three or four different liberal 
sects. We class these as mere experiments, as purely prelimi- 
nary trials of strength, before he entered the true arena of his 
professorship. 

The professorship, to be sure, was self-instituted — self- 
ordained — and why not self-asserted ? There were professors 
of hair- invigorating oils, professors of dancing, professors of rat- 
catching, professors of hair-eradication, professors of cough- 
candy, professors of commercial book-keeping and running- 
hand writing, professors of flea-powder and bug-extermination 
— and why not a professor of elocution } The very gutter- mud 
germinates professors in this free country! They grow like 
fungi out of wallowing reptiles’ heads ; and who need be sur- 
prised, in America, at receiving the card of his boot-black, 
inscribed Professor Brush ; his chimney-sweep. Professor Soot ; 
or be appalled by the bloody apparition of a missive from his 
butcher, emblazoned, ‘‘Professor Keyser, Killer!” 

No disrespect, mark you, is intended to be either understood 
or implied, for the gentlemen of the various professions above 
enumerated, for they are all respectable in their way, and to be 
respected, outside of their professorships. But that is rather a 
serious name, as we understand it — one that the world has been 
accustomed to look up to with veneration — proportioned, until 
these “ modern instances,” to the vast and profound learning 
which had made it, in the old world, the synonyme of almost 
patriarchal inspiration — the grand, firm, and stable bulwark of 
human progress, and its lofty future ; of infinite science, and its 
clear, glorious myths ! 

This thing of learning seems so easy, that your starveling 
Yankee perceives no difficulties in the way, and glides into its 
penetralia “ like a book,” — only that he never reads it! He is 
at once at home in all topography, as much as if he were in 
Kamtschatka, or the “ Tropic Isles.” Furred cloaks or bread- 
fruit leaves are all the same to him ; he was born knowing, and 


56 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


of course could not do less than know a great deal more about 
Kamtschatka and the ‘‘ Tropic Isles’’ than their furred and fig- 
leaved denizens. Brass is the Yankee’s capital, and no wonder 
they made the great discoveries of copper on Lake Superior, so 
extensively patronised by New-light sages. It is the ofTset to 
California gold; for, while one promises an infinite supply of 
the substantial basis of commerce and all trade, the other pro- 
mises to furnish, in perpetuity, the crude material of impudence. 

We mean no insinuation in regard to the Spiritual Professor, 
however much he may have had to do, by ‘‘ spherical influ- 
ence,” in precipitating the discovery of this great mine of the 
metal so much in favor with the sages above mentioned— and the 
remainder of the sect to which the Professor belonged — the 
motto of which is, that, “ Out of the mouths of babes and suck- 
lings shall ye be confounded.” Yet we can freely venture to 
assert, that he had no connection whatever with those unfor- 
tunate commercial results, which, in the first place, nearly, 
if not entirely, swamped the great Patron of the enterprise. 
The mind of our Professor was necessarily not of that vast reach 
and generalising comprehension, which could lead to the Behe- 
moth stride and wizard calculation of results, which had enabled 
his master thus confidently to speculate in so subtle a material. 

The operations of our Professor were essentially minified ; 
that is, their sphere and scope had been particularly narrow. 
He was heroic enough. Heaven kjuows ; but then his heroism 
was of that dashing character which only required a patron to 
illustrate and make it known. 

Having published a book upon this occult (in his hands) 
science of elocution, which was, of course, written for him by 
another party, he suddenly felt himself inspired with a new 
inspiration. 

He had already taught men how to talk, and it now became 
necessary, and indeed spiritually incumbent upon him, to teach 
them how to live. He accordingly announced himself, forth- 
with, as Revelator-in-Chief of the spiritual mysteries of the uni- 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


57 


verse. Every reader will probably remember those flaming pro- 
grammes of lectures which appeared, by the half column, in a 
New York paper, for a long period, daily, between ’43 and 
’45. Mendacious impudence never vaulted higher ! Our Spi- 
ritual Professor -was in his glory now. 

An illustrious man lived once in Sweden. He was humble, 
pure and firm. His astonishing works on scientific subjects left 
the mind of his period far behind him, utterly confounded by 
his direct and stringent elucidation of the most subtle of the 
purely physical laws. It seemed a miracle to them ; they found 
their professional accuracy so far surpassed, that they durst not 
do more than wonder. Work after work of this amazing intel- 
lect came forth, dressed in a language, while handling such 
themes, common to the world of science. 

Then came a sudden change, and this vast mind, which here- 
tofore had dealt in simple demonstration with mankind, threw 
down its compass and its squares, and, in the language of hu- 
mility, proclaimed itself a Medium. The God of Jacob and 
humanity had revealed himself to him, not in the burning bush 
of mystery, but in the lustrous quiet of a calm repose. He had 
talked scientific truth before, but now he spoke of spiritual 
things — a chosen Medium between God and man ! His theme 
was far beyond all science. We have nothing to do with his 
wide postulate ; his name was too sublime and venerable among 
the patriarchs of mankind, for me to speak of it otherwise in 
this connection, than in disgust and loathing of the profanation 
to which it has been subjected, in our country, by monkeyish 
and parrot- tongued ignoramuses. 

Our learned and sagacious Professor of Elocution, happening 
to stumble upon some of the earlier translations of the works of 
Swedenborg, seized upon them with great avidity, and, as he 
had now learned to read without spelling the words out loud, he 
managed to get them by heart with most surprising facility, and, 
to the astonishment of Jew and Gentile, suddenly proclaimed 
himself an apostle of the new church. 


58 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


To be sure, when one considers this undertaking in the ab- 
stract, it was rather a serious one ; one indeed that w^ould have 
appalled most men, as the works of Swedenborg really con- 
sisted of some forty-odd huge volumes, written in Latin, not a 
line of which the Professor could translate ; and the hand-books 
he had fallen upon were merely translations of introductory 
cornpends. What though the field was one of the most prodi- 
gious in human learning — what though the themes were the 
highest that could xiccupy mortal contemplation — what though 
the patient diligence of an ordinary lifetime would scarce suffice 
intelligent persons for the studious comprehension of the truths 
taught by this wonderful man ? it was all the same to the Pro- 
fessor; and, indeed, instead of being discouraged, he w^as 
rather encouraged, by the magnitude of the undertaking! An 
exponent of Swedenborg! , Well, w^hy not? He could spell 
words in three syllables ! 

Big with the prodigious discovery of his own capabilities and 
the new mine of doctrinal science, the learned Professor rushed 
precipitately into the ever-extended arms of his Patron saint, 
the nourisher and cherisher of empirics and empiricism. And 
why should he not be so, forsooth ? It was cheap^ not too 
much learning,” that had made him ‘‘mad” as well! He too 
had found it to his account to scorn the decencies of a thorough 
education, and from a printer’s devil, wdth a mind that had fed 
upon scraps and paragraphs, had doggedly risen, through the 
help of the familiar demon of labor, which possessed him, into 
this position of Patron to all new-comers — provided they bore 
“ new-lights” and coppers! 

It mattered little to this self- constituted and unscrupulous dig- 
nitary whether the theme was new to the wmrld, or only to him- 
self; the latter was most likely to* be the case with one who 
had probably never read a dozen books consecutively through 
in his life, and who, from gross physique, dress, habits, and 
mental idiosyncrasies, was necessarily incapacitated for compre- 
hending the fine and subtle relations of truth ; who, even with 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


59 


the sovereign aid of the new-light Panacea, bran-bread, had 
seemed to be capable of digesting but a fragment of truth at a 
time, and that fragment, too, gpbbled without the slightest regard 
for its relations to other truths. 

Here was a happy appreciation w’ith a vengeance ! — was it 
knave of fool, or fool of knave — which ? The question is in- 
teresting ! At all events, the results were the same, so far as, the 
public were concerned. It was forthwith announced that the 
Patron Saint, like some patient and watchful astronomer, sweep- 
ing the blue abyss of heaven with ever-constant glass, had sud- 
denly discovered a new luminary — it certainly had a fiery tail, 
but whether it was going to prove a genuine comet or not, let 
the following announcement bear witness : 

“ Professor Boanerges Phospher lectures to-night in the Taber- 
nacle, which it is thought may possibly contain some small por- 
tion, at least, of the enormous crowd which will of course assemble 
to hear his profound and luminous exposition of the mysteries 
of the universe. The doctrine of correspondences, as pro- 
pounded by the learned Professor, reveals the true solution of 
all problems which affect the relations of mankind to the spirit- 
ual world. Indeed, his enormous research' and unappreciable 
profundity have at length enabled him to solve the problem of 
the universe^ which he, with the most luminous demonstration, 
will educate even the infant mind to comprehend with sufficient 
clearness, in five easy lessons, or lectures on every other night, 
at one dollar each. The whole subject of man, in his eternal 
relations to God, to the spiritual wmrld, and to the earth, will 
be mathematically expounded to the full comprehension of all.” 

Here follows the programme : 

‘‘ Professor Boanerges Phospher undertakes to show in the 
lecture of to-night. That in the universe there are these three 
things : end, cause, and effect ; that infinite things in the infinite 
are one ; that they constitute a triune existence — they are three 
in one ; that the universe is a work cohering from firsts to lasts. 

“ That Good is from a twofold origin, and thence adscititious. 


60 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


That celestial good is good in essence, and spiritual good is 
good in form. That the good of the inmost Heaven is called 
celestial ; of the middle Heaven, spiritual ; and of the ultimate 
Heaven, spiritual, natural. That good is called lord, and truth 
servant, before they are conjoined, but afterwards they are called 
brethren. That he who is good is in the faculty of seeing truth, 
which flows from general truths, and this in a continual series. 
That good is actually spiritual fire, from which spiritual heat, 
w^hich makes alone, is derived. 

“ That all Evil has its rise from the sensual principle, and also 
from the scientific. There is an evil derived from the false, and 
a false from evil. 

“ That gold sig. the good of love. When twice mentioned, 
sig. the good of love, and the good of faith originating in love. 

‘‘ That influx from the Lord is through the internal into the 
external. Spiritual influx is founded on the nature of things, 
which is spirit acting on matter. 

“ That physical influx, or natural, originates from the fallacy 
of the senses that the body acts on spirit. 

‘‘ That harmonious influx is founded on a false conclusion, 
viz. : that the soul acts jointly and at the same instant with the 
body. That there is a common influx ; and this influx passes 
into the life of animals, and also into the subjects of the vege- 
table kingdom. That influx passes from the Lord to man 
through the forehead~for the forehead corresponds to love, and 
the face to the interior of the mind.” 

To be followed by questions in the correspondences by any 
of the audience who may choose to ask them, such as. To what 
does “ horse” correspond ? — To what does ‘^able,” ‘‘ chair, ”or 
“soap-stone” correspond? — To what does “hog,” “goose,” 
“ butter-milk,” or “jackass” correspond ? &c., &c. To all of 
which questions the learned lecturer will give edifying answers 
from the stand. Admittance, one dollar — Children, half-price. 

This is a long programme, to be sure, and somewhat over- 
whelming to we common people, who have been in the habit 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


61 


of regarding certain subjects with the profoundest veneration, 
and our modest and capable teachers with reverence. But the 
very length of this programme, and the enormous stretch of the 
themes, only go, I suppose, to illustrate the hardihood of our 
“admirable Crichton,” the professor of the occult — and the 
genial and the generous — to call it by its lightest name — gulli- 
bility, of his gaping audience. 

Forth went these flaming announcements' day by day, on 
thousand hot-pressed sheets, until New York became all agog, 
and the great mass conceived that they had found a new prophet. 
All its spectacled and thin-bearded women forthwith were in 
arms ; the Professor wore his hair behind his ears, and, of 
course, was the sofl and honey-sucking seraph of their dreams. 

He could be indeed nothing short of seraphim-revealed, for 
he discoursed wdth them in winning tones of mists and mysteries. 
He told them bald tales of angels with whom he had been on 
terms of intimacy ; for he sagaciously kept his master, Sweden- 
borg, mainly in the background throughout. 

Representing himself as the individual recipient of these 
revelations, from the spherical ladies who wear wings, and who 
are habitually designated as angels by both the sexes, on our 
little clod of earth, our champion became, of course, the hero 
of all such semi-whiskered maidens or matrons, who, though 
essentially “ pard-like spirits,” were yet, to reverse the words 
of Shelley, more “ swift,” alias “ fast,” than “ beautiful !” It 
is, of course, to be comprehended that beauty is comparative as 
well as wit, and we would no more be understood as insinuating 
that these thinly-hirsute virgins and dames, who at once con- 
stituted the principal audience of the mighty Professor, were 
themselves in any degree deficient in sympathy either with the 
man and his profound doctrines, or the man per se, than that 
we would assert they understood one word of what he mouthed 
to them, with his hair behind his ears. 

Boanerges Phospher, the Spiritual Professor, ^vas successful, 
and never was there anything so professionally brilliant as the 
6 


62 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


crowded houses that he nightly drew. The immense Tabernacle 
seemed a mere nut-shell ; he could have filled half-a-dozen such 
houses nightly. The mob had grown excited by the novelty. 
The paper of the Patron Saint, at so many pennies a line, day 
by day, continued to prostitute its columns to this vulgar trap 
of silly servant-maids and profound clerks. 

The Professor’s lectures were attended by countless swarms 
of inquirers after truth, who, as they were willing to accept a 
spoken for a written language of which they knew nothing, per- 
mitted him to stumble through propasitions, which, in them- 
selves, were so ridiculously absurd as even to disarm contempt 
in the wise, and make denunciation harmless as superfluous. 


■ ^ CHAPTER V. 

BOANERGES AND THE YOUNG MATHEMATICIAN. 

Famine is in thy cheeks, 

Need and oppression stareth in thy eyes, 

Upon thy back hangs ragged misery. 

Shakspeare. 

There’s no more 

Mercy in him than there’s milk in the male tiger. 

Idem, 

The bowels of Boanerges Phospher, the Spiritual Professor, 
were possessed of such extraordinary capacity for yearning over 
the fallen and lost condition of his brothers of mankind, that, 
not content with saving them by wholesale, and nightly, in those 
marvellously spiritualized lectures, his indomitable energies took 
up the trade of saving men individually and by detail. 

This, let it be understood, was done between times, by way 
of recreation, just to keep his hand in. Let us follow him on 
one of these errands of mercy. 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


63 


In a poor garret of Ann Street, New York, might have been 
seen, about these days, a young man, seated in a rickety chair, 
beside a dirty pine table, which was plentifully strewn with 
manuscripts covered with many a tedious cdumn of figures and 
mysterious-looking diagrams. 

You saw at once, from the disproportionate size of the broad, 
white, bulging brow, which brooded, heavily over large mourn- 
ful eyes, and thin, emaciated features, that he was a mathema- 
tician ; possessing one of those precocious and enormous de- 
velopments of the organs of calculation, which are so apt, when 
not diverted by other occupations and excitements, to consume 
rapidly the feeble fuel of life in their consecrated fires. 

A wretched cot-bed occupied one corner of the room, which 
was likewise strewm with papers and books on mathematical 
subjects, while on the mantel lay scattered little heaps of dried 
cheese and crusts, which seemed so hardened, that no tooth of 
predatory mouse had left its mark thereon. 

The young man was dressed in entire conformity with the 
miserable appearance of the room.*. His thin and silky hair 
hung in lank, clammy locks about his shockingly pallid features, 
as he leaned forward on his elbow, his forehead resting heavily 
on his thin hand, as he pored over the papers before him. 

“ Ah me,” muttered he, ‘‘this horrid poverty !” and he threw 
down his pen and sank back with a faint, despairing movement. 

“ My brain is giddy with this dizzy round of figures, figures. 
My weary calculation is nearly done, but my over-tasked brain 
sickens. Ah, but for just one good meal, to strengthen, me for 
a few^ hours, and I could finish it — finish rtiy glorious work!” 

At this moment a rapid step w^as heard ascending the creak- 
ing stairs ; the door flew open rudely, and, without any an- 
nouncement; the Spiritual Professor, with his hair all nice 
behind his ears, came bustling forward toward the table, beside 
the fainting young student. Rubbing his hands at the same 
time in prodigious glee of anticipation, he exclaimed — 


64 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


‘‘Ha! my son! my spiritual child! how is it with you? 
Have you finished ? Is it done ?” 

The poor student shook his head slightly, and muttered 
feebly— * ’ 

“ No, no ; I cannot finish it.” 

The eager face of the Professor turned suddenly very blank 
and very white at the same time, as, straightening himself, he 
stammered out — 

“ Wh-what ! c-cannot finish it ! You must finish it ! you shall 
finish it!” and then continuing with greater vehemence, without 
apparently noticing that the weary head of the poor being before 
him was slowly drooping yet lower — 

“ Here’s a pretty business, to be sure ! This is the reward I 
am to get for all I have done for you — for all my efforts to ad- 
vance you in the world — for all the heavy expenses I have 
incurred in bringing you on from Cincinnati, and supporting 
you here ! The evil spirits must have re-entered the boy ! 
Have I not striven for these six months faithfully, with all my 
spiritual strength, to drive them forth, that I might save him ? 
The boy must be born again — he must be regenerated once 
more. Cannot finish it! He must be chastened, to rebuke 
this evil spirit in him ; he must be reduced to bread and water. 
I must recall my liberal allowance for his food ; he has been 
living too high. The evil demon has probably entered him 
through a meal of fat pork !” and the spiritually outraged Pro- 
fessor sniffed with an indignant and eager sniffle, that he might 
detect the presence of the forbidden food. 

The poor youth, in the mean time, had been slowly sliding 
from his chair, and, as the Professor turned aside with the air 
of an injured cherub, the body lost its balance, and the faint- 
ing youth fell to the floor. 

“ Ha ! what now^ ?” shouted our cherub with the hair behind 
his ears, springing into the air with a nervous agility, as if he in 
reality wore wings. He placed himself on the opposite side of 
the room in a twinkling, and then turning his face, ghastly with 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


65 


fright, exclaimed, T thought the house was coming down!” 
and seeing the prostrate body, he walked around it as cautiously 
as a cat crouches, and,' with a stealthy inspection, peered into the 
half-open eyelids, at the upturned eyes, but without touching 
the body. ' ' 

Wh-why, the fellow’s gone and died! There goes my 
great speculation!” and springing back suddenly, he rushed 
towards the table, and seizing convulsively the papers, ran his 
eye eagerly over them, while his hands trembled violently ; and 
his lips turned as ashy blue as those of the poor victim at his 
feet, while, with an expression of despair, too unutterable for 
words to paint, he groaned out in frantic exclamations — No, 
no, no, it is not finished ; nobody else can do it but him ! I’m 
ruined ! I’m ruined ! Oh, my money’s gone — my money’s 
gone ! To think that he should die, after all I’ve done for him 
— after all my liberality ! O! 0! O! booh! booh! hoo !” 

At this melting crisis, a slight noise caused him to turn his 
head ; the apparent corpse was drawing up one foot, and mak- 
ing some other feeble movements, which showed that life was 
not entirely extinct. 

At this sight the eyes of Boanerges flew open as wide, in a 
stare of ecstacy, as they had before been stretched in horror, 
until their suffusion “ with the briny,” as Mr. Richard Swiveller 
would say, had caused them to momentarily wink.- 

‘‘Why, he ain’t dead yet! my speculation is safe. Some 
water! Where’s some water? Get some water !” and he ran 
peering and dodging around the room with an uncertain air, as 
if the new influx of joy had bewildered his seraphic mind. 
After some little delay he found the pitcher, which had been 
standing all the time in full view, within three feet of him ; he 
wildly dashed more than half the contents into the face of the 
victim, who instantly drew a long sobbing breath, and in a mo- 
ment or two opened- his eyes. 

This so increased the ecstacy of the Professor, that he now 
ventured to kneel beside him, and, in his eagerness, forgetting 
6 "= 


66 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


to use the tumbler that was standing near, he nearly crushed the 
poor student’s teeth down his throat, in his awkward endeavors 
to administer drink to him from the heavy pitcher — exclaiming, 
during the process, Drink ! drink ! m.y son. Don’t die, for 
Heaven’s sake ! Remember my liberality — my generous sacri- 
fices to advance you in the world. Remember our almanac — 
your great work, that is to make your fortune. Remember how 
you have been saved !” ' 

“Starved, you mean,” feebly whispered the young man, 
whom a few draughts of the precious fluid had rapidly revived. 

“ St-a-a-r-r-ved ! does he say ?” yelled Boanerges, shrinking 
back as if horrified, and nearly dropping the body he was sup- 
porting from his arms. Then, suddenly releasing one arm, he 
smoothed back his hair gently ; that radiant, angelic expression 
of sweet humility, for which it was so famous among the female 
part of his select and nightly audiences, overcame his face as 
with a halo, and leaning down, so as to look into the eyes of 
his victim, he asked, in a liquid voice, “ My son, have I — have 
I — thy spiritual father, starved thee?” and then tenderly he 
gazed into his eyes. With a look of assured self-satisfaction 
that those siren tones had done the business, he silently awaited 
the answer to the gentle and rebukeful question. But no an- 
swer came to the sweet, lingering look ; the young man only 
closed his eyes heavily, and shuddered. 

“ My son, my son !” continued the Professor, in yet more 
grieved and meek, and dulcet tones. “ My spiritual son, have 1 
starved thee ? have I not been generous to a fault, and even to 
wronging the beloved child of my own loins? This room, 
these writing materials, this tumbler, this pitcher, that delightful 
bed, are they not all my free-will gifts to thee for thy own ad- 
vancement, to enable thee to glorify God in thy works ? Have 
I not rather saved thee from starving ? You had nothing when 
I took you up, to patronise your genius, and bring you before 
the world ; and now you have plenty ! See, see, your mantel 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 67 

is even now crowded with bread and cheese, that you are 
wasting here in the midst of such superlative ab, undance.” 

The young man, at the mention of the bread and cheese, 
turned his head aside with an expression of bitter loathing arid 
disgust. 

“ Pah !” he muttered ; ‘‘ the very name of it makes me sick ; 
I have tasted nothing else for the last six months. That is 
what is killing me ; my stomach can retain it no longer ! Who 
can keep body and soul together on thirty cents a week 

“Horror!” exclaimed thfe Professor^ rolling up his eyes 
meekly. “To think of such frantic extravagance I And be- 
sides, my son, your spiritual strength should have sustained 
you — the success of your great work, the prospect of future 
glory ! A man starve on bread and cheese I Why, who ever 
heard of such a thing } Why, when I was a boy of ten years 
of age, I started alone, on foot, to cross the Alleghanies, to 
make my way to the North to school. My father had moved 
West when I was very young. I started with only one loaf of 
white bread in my bundle, when the whole country was wild 
and full of bears and wolves. The wolves chased me, and I 
climbed a tree ; they surrounded it, barking and gnashing their 
teeth, to get at me ; there were five hundred wolves at least, 
but I in my faith kept my strength, and remained cool as Daniel 
in the lion’s den, until at last they kept me there so long, I fell 
asleep, when the limb broke, and I fell down into the midst of 
them ; the wolves were so frightened, that they all took to their 
heels and ran away, leaving me safe. There is a specimen of 
the spiritual strength that faith gives, and should encourage you 
never to give up and faint by the way. Had you possessed 
more of such faith, my son, you would never have been 
stretched here, upon this floor, in such a condition, and talking 
about starving on bread and cheese. It is the soul, my son, the 
regenerate soul, that sustains the heroic man on earth, as I have 
so often endeavored to teach you.” 

“ Yes,” groaned the poor youth, with a gesture of impatience. 


68 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


The body must live too, and life cannot be sustained so long 
upon unvaried food.” 

“Listen, my son!” said the patient saint at his head — 
“ listen, and you shall hear what I accomplished on that single 
loaf of bread. I travelled on with 'my little bundle on my 
shoulder, containing the home-spun suit I was to w^ear when I 
arrived at school, and my loaf of bread. I travelled on till my 
clothes w^ere all worn out, and my shoes full of holes, and my 
feet were so sore and swollen that I was afraid to pull off my 
shoes, for fear I should not be able to get them on again. So I 
waded across all the brooks and mountain streams with my 
clothes on, until, at last, one afternoon, when high up in the 
mountains, my strength gave out, and I laid me down in the 
howling wilderness, thinking I must die. The weather was 
very cold, and my clothes, all wet from crossing the streams, 
were freezing, and the dreaded sleepiness was coming over me, 
when a good widow woman, who lived with her children on the 
mountains, and was out gathering wood, accidentally found me. 
She took me up in her arms, and carried me to her hut, and 
laid me on her bed, where I slept all night. In the morning, 
wLen I opened my eyes, I saw her breaking the hot Indian-corn 
bread, and giving it to her children. I told her if she would 
give me some of her corn bread, I would divide my loaf of 
white bread with her and her children. She eagerly ac- 
cepted the offer, for such a luxury as white bread had been 
long unknown to them, and that was my first speculation! 
While they ravenously devoured my loaf, I feasted upon her 
rich hot bread. My soul overflow^ed with delight as I witnessed 
their intense enjoyment of the meal I had been thus instru- 
mental in bringing them, and I felt as if the Lord had thus 
enabled me to fully repay them for their kindness. I rose to 
depart, and the good woman, filling my bundle with a large 
piece of her hot bread, sent me, with her blessing, on my way 
rejoicing. Thus, you see, my dear son, how, through the spi- 
ritual strength which faith imparts, and w^hich you so much need. 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


69 


I was enabled to cross the Alleghany mountains alone, at ten 
years of age, with nothing but my loaf of white bread, and with- 
out so much as a bit of cheese, or a cent in my pocket, and 
attained to the great goal of my ambition, the school ; and from 
whence, by the aid of selling an occasional button ^from my 
jacket, I have been able to rise to my present position as pro- 
fessor and patron of struggling genius.* 

“Ah !” said the young man, “words, words! . Give me to 
eat — I am starving!” and his head sank back once more. 

The Professor again deluged him with'water, and, profoundly 
surprised and alarmed that the honeyed eloquence of his saga- 
cious narrative had proved unavailing in convincing his victim 
that he could and ought to live upon faith, came to the desperate 
resolution of being guilty of the extravagance, for once, of a 
small bowl of soup to resuscitate his victim, and depositing his 
head upon some books, though the pillow was equally conve- 
nient, he hurried off to the nearest eating-house, with his hands 
upon his pockets, which were overflowing with goldj^as he was 
then in the meridian height of his prosperity. 


The sequel to this particular story is a short one. The young 
man revived with the change of a single nutritious meal, and 
with it returned the courage of even the trodden worm ; for he 
now stoutly told the Spiritual Professor that, unless he furnished 
him with ample means to support life, he would not touch an- 

* Incredible as it may seem, we pledge our personal veracity that this 
bald 'and silly narration, which appears to be merely a foolish bur- 
lesque, is a hona fide, et literatim, et jpunetuatim, transcript, as close as 
it is possible for memory to furnish, of stories that were, at least as 
often as five days out of the seven, related at the dinner-table at which 
Boanerges presided, to long double lines of gaping women, who, obe- 
dient to the irresistible spell he bore, had followed up this maudlin 
Proteus of Professors, as disciples of water-cure, through his latest meta- 
morphoses, into physician of such an establishment in Boston. It was 
thus he exhorted them to faith, and encouraged his backsliders. 


70 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


other figure of the immense gnd complicated calculations on 
which he had been so long engaged. 

The Professor, of course, resisted to the last, and quoted the 
correspondences upon him, with desperate fluency. But when 
the young man coolly seized the manuscript on the table before 
him, and held it over the flickering flame of the miserable .dip 
candle, which had now been of necessity lighted, the Professor 
sprang forward to arrest his hand, shrieking — 

“I will! I will! for God’s sake, stop! — how much do you 
want?” 

“ Five dollars a week !” was the cold response, as the flame 
caught the edges of the paper. 

I ’ll give it ! I ’ll give it ! What fearful extravagance ! My 
God ! put it out !” 

“ Pay me five dollars at once,” said the other. 

“Here it is — here it is!” and he jerked, in his excitement, 
from his pocket, a dozen gold-pieces of that value, and dashed 
them upon the table. 

“ Take your five dollars ! put it out!” 

The young man quietly swept the pieces within his reach into 
a drawer, which he at the same moment opened ; and, extin- 
guishing the margin of the manuscript, which had burned slowly 
from its thickness, he replied deliberately to the Professor, who 
had shrieked out — 

“ Do you mean to rob me ?” 

“iNo, sir ! but I mean to keep this money, and if you ap- 
proach me, I shall destroy this manuscript if it cost me my life. 
You have starved and outraged me long enough ; you expect 
to make a fortune off my labors, and kill me with famine just 
as my work is done. But with all my humility, abstraction and 
patience, this is too much ! I am roused at last, in self-defence, 
and you shall find it so!” 

The Professor sank into a chair as if fainting, and for some 
moments continued to mutter, with more than the magnanimity^ 
of a sick kitfen — 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


71 


“To think ! Robbed \ All my generosity ! The ruffian ! 
Here, to my very face! What have I gained by saving 
him?’’- 

This last expression was gasped out, as if the vital breath of 
the speaker wa^ passing in the final spaSm. 

The scene need not be prolonged. The valorous Professor 
crept away, cowed beneath the cold, firm, lustrous eye of the 
now aggressive victim, whose enthusiasm for science and earnest 
self-dedication, had heretofore kept him blinded to a full reali- 
sation of all the monstrous iniquity which had so long been 
practised upon his abstracted, meek, and uncomplaining nature. 
He now determined to take his life into his own hands, and saw 
clearly through all the shallow and ridiculous pretence of patron- 
age and “ saving,” by which his single-hearted fervor had been 
beguiled. 

In a few days it, was announced to the Professor, whose faith 
and spiritual strength — the same that had scared off the wolves 
when he fell among them — had in the interval been restored to 
their equilibrium, that the great work was now completed, and 
the announcement was accompanied by a proposition on the 
part of the young mathematician to sell out to him entire his 
copyright share in the whole enterprise, at a price so compara- 
tively insignificant, when the Professor’s own florid anticipations 
of future results were considered, that he sprang at the offer 
eagerly, and thus possessed himself at once of the “golden 
goose.” 

The young mathematician disappeared, and the Professor was 
left exulting in the sole possession of what seemed to him, in 
vision, the nearest representative of the gold -of Ophir, not to 
speak of California. 

The idea of the young mathematician was, in itself, a prac- 
tical one, and seemed rationally conceived. 

We have used the word almanac, by which it was designated, 
l^it in reality it very poorly conveys the subtle and singular 
combinations which were here brought to bear upon a circular, 


72 


SPIKITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


rotary surface, the aim of which was, to so far simplify the cal- 
culations of interest, wages, discounts, and a hundred other 
tedious and difficult problems occurring in complicated business 
affairs, that the merchant or banker had only to glance his eye 
down a line of figures, to ascertain in a moment results which 
would take him, by all the ordinary aids and processes, a long 
calculation to arrive at. 

It was a brilliant conception, which must prove ultimately a 
most successful discovery of the young mathematician, and one 
which had cost him many years of careful analysis and profound 
observation. But as he handed over the perfected copyright to 
our astute Professor, who had just enough of button-trading cun- 
ning to perceive the immense practical results of the enterprise, 
without the slightest knowledge of the processes by which it had 
been perfected, there might have been noticed upon the face 
of his former victim, as he pocketed his paltry bonus, a slight 
sneer, which would have alarmed any one less gifted with occa- 
sional short-sightedness than our Professor has shown himself 
to be. 

He made off with the documents in an ecstacy of triumph, 
and forthwith began making round purchases of paper, paste- 
board, and other mechanical appliances necessary to his success, 
to the amount of thousands of his easily-got gains ; and then as 
heavy sums were as rapidly expended upon the costly and diffi- 
cult copper-plate engraving, which was to set forth in full the 
triumph, the undivided honors of which he now claimed, to the 
world. 

There are few of the main printing-offices in the country 
that had not, or have not, that famous circular almanac hanging 
upon their walls. Unfortunately the Professor had been too 
eager to promulgate his triumph, and powerfully illustrated in 
this experiment the truth of the old aphorism, The greater 
haste the less speed for it turned out, upon a close examina- 
tion of the long and intricate series of calculations, by scientlfc 
men, that the fatal error of a single numeral ran throughout its 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


73 


complex demonstration, and rendered its whole results utterly 
futile, without the enormous expense of cancelling the costly 
copper- plate, and the tremendous edition which had been 
already issued. The incorrigible ignorance of the Spiritual 
Professor had rendered him incapable of detecting the error 
himself, and he had thereby swamped effectually not only his 
magnanimous speculation in-this particular case, but thoroughly 
dissipated the abundant proceeds of his more successful specu- 
lation in the spiritual correspondences. 

This little accident threw him upon his shifts, but we shall 
surely find him upon his feet again hereafter. 

Had not his starving victim subtly worked out a sublime 
revenge, in spite of the fact that he had been over and over 
again so thoroughly saved ? So much for Boanerges and the 
young mathematician. 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE NEW “ SAVING GRACE.” 

Thou hast thews 

Immortal, for thou art of heavenly race; 

But such a love is mine, that here I chase 

Eternally away from thee all bloom 

Of youth, and destine thee towards a tomb. 

Endymion. 

Fierce, wan. 

And tyrranizing was the lady^s look. 

Idem. 

A YEAR, in the life of man, is a long time. Alas! w^hat 
changes may it not bring about to any, the strongest of us, the 
most secure — those wear}^, dragging twelve months! Such a 
period has elapsed in the chronology of our narrative, since the 
scenes described as occurring at the Graham House. 

7 


74 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


It is late, on a dark, stormy evening, and we will look into 
the well-stocked half library and half ^office of a handsome pri- 
vate residence in Beekman Street, New York. 

The cushioned appliances of the most fastidious luxury of 
repose were strewed about the room in the strangest disorder of 
heaped cushions, fallen chairs, and out-of-pla(?fe lounges ; while 
books, surgical instruments, vials, dusty, crusty, broken, and 
corkless, all mingled in the desolate confusion which seemed to 
have usurped the place. 

A shaded lamp stood upon the table in the centre of this 
chaos, and threw its light upon a large decanter of brandy and 
a glass beneath. A deep-drawn moaning sigh disturbs the 
deathlike silence of the room ; and a broad, stout figure, which 
had leaned back within the shadow of a huge cushioned chair 
beside the table, reached suddenly forward and clutched the 
brandy-bottle convulsively. He dashed a great gulp into the 
glass, and then, with trembling hand, attempted to carry it to 
his lips. After two or three efforts, which proved unavailing 
from his excessive nervousness, he replaced the glass, muttering, 
‘‘Curse this nervousness! It will not even let me drink my 
poison any more !” He shuddered as he turned his head away. 
“ No wonder ! how horribly the hell-broth smells !” He fell back 
into the deep chair again and was silent for some time, when, 
uttering from the depths of his chest that strange moan, he 
sprang to his feet. 

“I must drink!” he gnashed, as, seizing the decanter again, 
he filled the tumbler to overflowing, splashing the dark fluid 
over everything on the table. “I shall die if I do not drink! 
I shall go crazy ! I will not be baffled !” 

Without attempting to raise it again to his lips, he bowed 
them to the brimming glass, and as the beast drinks, so drank 
he. Oh, fearful degradation ! Where now is the strong man ? 
that powerful frame would speak. After leaning the tumbler 
with his lips and trembling hands in a long, deep draught, he* 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 75 

straightened himself with an expression of loathing that distorted 
his face hideously. 

‘^Paugh! Hell should mix more nectar with its chiefest 
physic ! This stuffds loathsome, and my revolting nerves seem 
with a separate life to shudder as the new babe does to hear the 
asp hiss amidst the flowers where it sports ! Paugh ! infernal ! 
that it should come to jne in this short time, even as a second 
nature, to learn to feed on poisons ! It was not so once ; nature 
was sufficient, aye, sufficient, when the skies rained glory out 
of day, and the stars came down in beamy strength through 
night! But then! but then! Ah, yes! it had not become ne- 
cessary then, that I should be s-a-v-e-d by human love !” and 
his features writhed as he prolonged the word. — ‘‘S-a-v-e-d! 
no ! no ! no heavenly guise of horrid lust to s-a-v-e me ! The 
chaste and blushing spring came .to the early winter of my ste- 
rile life that bloomed beneath its radiant warmth, and gladdened 
to grow green and odor-breathed and soft, and then ! oh, horror! 
horror ! I am strong enough to drink again. My nerves are 
numbed now ; they dare not tremble.” 

He seized the decanter once more, and then, with unshaking 
hand, conveyed the brimming glass to his lips, and after a deep 
draught threw himself upon the chair again, and drawing at the 
same time a glittering object from his breast, he leaned forward 
within the circle of the lamp-light to regard it as it lay open upon 
the table before him. This is the first time we have seen that 
face clearly — that haggard, pallid face. Ha! can it be ? Those 
sunken, bloated cheeks! Those dimmed, hollow eyes, with 
leaden, drooping lids ! O, can it be ? Have we known that 
face before ? God help us ! The good Doctor ! and only one 
year ! 

But see the change ! His eye has rested upon that face before 
him. A miniature, beautifully executed. In it a charmed art 
has presided at a miracle ! an arch seraphic brow all “ sunnied 
o’er” by the golden reflex from its tangled curls, broken in beam 
and shadow, gracefully glanced a gay defiance in his eyes, from 


76 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


eyes — so lustrous innocent ! You dare not say they could be 
less than all divine, but that the sweet mouth spoke of earth, ^nd 
every weakness of it, ‘‘ earthy.’’ 

See how the face of that sad and broken man is changing ! 
those shrunk and heavy features are re-lit with life, as some dead 
waste with sunshine, suddenly. The bright, the tender past ; " 
the mellowed, mournful past, have mounted to the eyes and 
flushed those massive features once again. He seems as one 
transfigured for a moment, while he gazes. The glory of old 
innocence has compassed him about, alas ! but for a moment ! 
The tears pour flooding from his eyes, and blot the face whereon 
he gazes. A sob — that wild and piteous moan again — and the 
palsied wreck of the strong man falls back once more into his 
cushioned chair. A horrid, stertorous breathing, most like that 
of a dying man, fills the gloomy air of that dim room, and with 
ashy lips and fallen jaw, he sleeps! Ah, that seems a fearful 
sleep, with the tears, warm tears, still pouring, pouring down 
the rigid cheek ! 

The shaded lamp burns on, and fitfully the chaos of that 
room, here and there, is touched by its faint light. A slight 
sound, a rustling tread is heard, and in a moment, a woman, 
dressed in black, with a black veil about her face, and the um- 
brella which had protected her from the storm in her hand, stood 
beside the sleeper. She evidently had a pass-key, for she 
walked forward as one accustomed to use it at all hours and 
confidently. 

‘‘The beast! Drunk, dead drunk again!” she muttered. 

“ I shan’t get the money I wanted to-night, that is plain ! Curse 
his obstinacy ! After all my trouble to save him, this is my 
reward ! Worse and worse !” 

She sprang forward eagerly as her eye fell upUn the jewelled 
miniature that lay before him on the table, and snatched it up. 

“ Ha ! this will save me some trouble !” She turned it eagerly 
over in her hands, throwing back her veil at the same time, to 
examine the valuable case with vivid glistening eyes, that did 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


77 


not seem to notice in the least degree the exquisite painting 
within. 

‘‘ Ah, yes, this is great ! Wonder the fool never let me know 
of it before ! I should have had it in Chatham Street before 
this! Never mind, ‘ never too late,’ I see! It saves me the 
trouble of exploring his pockets and table-drawers to-night, for 
what is getting to be a scarce commodity. Bah! what silly 
school-girl face is this ? He is falling back to whine about the 
past. O, that’s all right. I’ll fill his decanter for him ! He has 
done enough. He has fed me for a year. I’ll let the poor 
wretch off! Yes, I’ve saved him ! I have feasted on him 
And she drew herself erect with a triumphant swelling of the 
whole frame, which seemed to emit, for the moment, from its 
outline, a keen quick exhalation most like the heat-lightning of 
a sultry summer sky. 

She fills the decanter rapidly from a demijohn she drags from 
a closet in the room, and places it by his side. She pushes the 
water-pitcher far beyond his reach, and then steps forward for a 
moment into the light. 

Have we ever seen that face before? No!. no! It might 
have been — there is some resemblance — but this form and face 
are too full of arrogant abounding strength to be the same faint 
bleeding victim of ruthless persecution that we saw at first! 
No ! no ! It cannot be she ! Ha ! as she thrusts that jewelled 
miniature into her bosom and turns to glide away, I can detect 
that infernal obliquity of the left eye ! O, dainty Etherial ! 


7 


78 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER VII. 

THE CONVENTICLE OF THE STRONG-MINDED. 

Her strong toils of grace. 

Shakspeare. 

Take we a glimpse now of another interior scene in the 
strange, mingled life of the great metropolis. In a bare and 
meanly-furnished but roomy parlor of a house in Tenth Street, 
near Tompkins Square, we find assembled, on one summer’s 
afternoon, a group of females. There are perhaps ten of them 
in all. The characteristic which first strikes the eye, on glancing 
around this ^roup, is the strange angularity of lines presented 
everywhere, in faces, figures, and attitudes, except when con- 
trasted with an uncouth and squabby embonpoint, which seemed 
equally at variance with the physical harmonies, supposed to be 
characteristic of the sex. What all this meant, you could 
not comprehend at first glance ; but the impression was, of 
something “ out of joint.” Where, or what, it was impossible 
to conjecture. Some sat with their bonnets on, which had a 
Quakerish cut about them, though not strictly orthodox. Some, 
conscious of fine hair, had tossed their bonnets on the floor or 
chairs, as the case might be. There was, in a word, a prevail- 
ing atmosphere of steadfast and devil-may-care belligerence ^ 
a seeming, on brow, in hand, and foot, that, demurely restrained, 
as it certainly was, unconsciously led you to feel that a slow 
and simultaneous unbuttoning of the cuffs of sleeves, a deli- 
berate rolling up of the same, and a dazzling development of 
lean, taut tendons, corrugated muscles, and swollen veins, 
would be the most natural movement conceivable. Not that 
this bellicose sentiment, by any means, seemed to have found 
its proper antagonism in the forms and personalities then and 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


79 


there presented ; but that you felt, in the vacant reach and per- 
sistent abstraction of the expression, that the foe, at whom they 
gazed through the infinite of space, was not an Individuality, 
but an Essence, — a world- devouring element of Evil, with 
which they warred. 

And warriors indeed they seemed — we should say Amazons — 
wielding, not the weapons pf carnal strife, but those mightier 
arms with w^hich the Spirit doth, at times, endow our race. As 
for the war they waged, whatever might be the power with 
whom they were engaged, it seemed to have been a protracted 
and a desperate one; for, verily, judging from the harsh lines 
that seamed the faces of those present, one would imagine them 
to be “ rich only in large hurts !” 

There were young w^omen present who were clearly under 
twenty; whose foreheads, when they elevated their eyebrows, 
were wrinkled and parchment-like as any 

“ Painful warrior famoused for 

Why this unnatural wilting ? w^ould be the certain question 
of the cool observer. What fearful WTongs have these women 
suffered? What “contagious blastments?” Is the wicked 
w^orld arraigned against them for no just cause? Has it com- 
bined its respiring masses into one large, simultaneous breath 
of volcanic cursings, to be wreaked upon their Unoffending 
heads alone? To be sure, 

“ Some innocents ’scape not the thunderbolt 

and can it be that these, too, are “ innocents ?” It i^ true, phy- 
siology teaches that, w^hen women wither prematurely, acquire 
an unnatural sharpness of feature, become 

“ Seated and chapped with tanned antiquity,” 

before they have seen years enough for the bloom of the life of 
true maturity to have freshened on their cheeks and foreheads, 
there must be some cause for it. Common sense teaches, too, 
that that cause is most likely to be, originally, rather a physical 


80 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


than a spiritual one — that mental aberration, dogged and sullen 
moods, one-ideaed abstractions, a general peevishness and fret- 
ful discontent, a suspicious unbelief in the warm-blooded geni- 
alities, and much enduring sympathies of those around them, 
whose lives are intact — or, in other words, who have held them- 
selves, in health, through nature, near to God — must have its 
source in some evil not entirely foreign to themselves. 

Ask the wise physician why are these things so? He will 
answer, God has so ordered this material universe, that, while 
we live in it, we must conform to its laws ; that, however pow- 
erful our spiritual entity, our relations to this life must, to be 
happy, be normal. 

But this is prosing. It may, or it may not, account, in part, 
for the combative and generally corrugated aspect of this con- 
venticle of the strong-minded,” to which we have been intro- 
duced. Now let us listen ! 

She to whom the place of presiding Pythoness seemed to 
have been, by general understanding, assigned, now solemnly 
arose, amidst a sudden pause of shrill- tongue d clatter. She 
was very tall — nearly six feet. Her straight figure would have 
seemed voluptuously rounded, but that the loose-folded and 
wilted oval of her face suggested that the plump bust, with its 
close, manly jacket of black velvet, buttoned down in front, 
might owe something of its elastic seeming roundness to those 
conventionalities, ii la modiste^ and otherwise, against which 
her principles most vehemently protested. Her flaxen hair 
emulated the classic tie of any Venus of them all, on the back 
part of the head ; while the effulgence of sunny curls flooded 
the very crow’s-feet in the corners of her great, cold, dead, 
grey eyes. 

She shook her curls slightly, and spoke : — 

‘‘ My sisters, we have come together this afternoon, not to talk 
about abstractions of right and wrong to our sex ; for, upon all 
these elementary subjects, our minds are fully made up — all 
those inductive processes of which the human intellect is capable. 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


81 


our minds have already passed through. Our opinions are irrevo- 
cably formed, our conclusions absolute! Woman is oppressed 
by man. She is denied her just rights. She is taxed, yet de- 
nied the privilege of representation. She is a slave, without 
the privileges of slavery I for, in the old slave-states, the pos- 
session of twenty, or thirty, or forty slaves gives to their master 
the faintly-representative privilege of an additional vote, while, 
to our tyrants, though each may hold, in reality, a dozen wives, 
the law grants nothing! Leaving us, in fact, not even the 
‘shadow of a shade’ of a social or civil existence! We are 
thus reduced to a condition of insignificance, in relation to the 
active affairs of life and the world, that w^e have determined to 
be, both incongruous and insufferable. 

“ Man, our time-out-of-mind despot, has determined to 
reduce us to, and hold us within, the sphere of mere wet-nurses 
to his insolent and bifurcate progeny ; — we must, forsooth, 
spawn for him, and then dedicate our lives to educating his pro- 
creative vices into what he calls manhood! We are wearied 
with the dull, stale, commonplace of nursery-slops, and of the 
fractious squallings of our embryo tyrants ! Man must learn to 
nurse his own monsters, and we will nurse ours ! We have de- 
clared our independence of his tyranny ; our great object is to 
displace him from his seat of power! For six thousand years 
he has been our despot — our ruthless and unscrupulous tyrant! 
We have therefore a settlement to make with him — a long 
arrearage of accounts to be rendered. 

“ But we are weak, while he is strong! He possesses the 
physical force, and all the guarantees of precedence' since time 
began, while we have only our own weaknesses to fall back 
upon — what they, in their surfeited rythm, style ‘witching 
graces,’ and ‘ nameless charms !’ 

“ Well, we must use these against our obese foe as best w^e 
may. We must clip the claws and teeth of the lion, at any 
rate ; and, in consideration that the whole World of Past and 
Present is arraigned against us, we must accept as our motto. 


82 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


that of the only man who ever deserved to be a woman, Loyola, 
the founder of the Jesuits, 

“ ‘ The end justifies the means.^^' 

A small noise — a scarcely sensible ‘^teetering” of pedal ex- 
tremities upon the thin carpet, followed this ‘‘ stern demonstra- 
tion” of “w^oman’s rights,” from the accepted Priestess of the 
conventicle ; when various exclamations arose from different 
parts of tbe room, such as — 

‘‘ Right ! right ! End justifies the means, in dealing with the 
brutes !” 

“ They give us no quarter, and we will give them none !” 

‘‘Nurse their brats, forsooth!” 

“We must circumvent them as we can, to obtain our 
‘rights!’” ' * 

“ Yes ! yes ! All stratagems are fair in love and war !” 

Suddenly sprang to her feet a very emphatic, stout woman, 
straight and thick-set, with soiled cap, coarse, stubby, grayish 
hair, sparse, silvery bristles on her chin, gray, savage eyes, and 
large fists, which she brought down with a crash upon the frail 
chair-back which constituted the bulwark of her position. In 
a voice of creaking bass, she exclaimed — 

“ The sister is right — they are our oppressors; but it is be- 
cause we have been cowards enough to yield them the suprem- 
acy; it is nothing but our own cowardice that is to blame. 
Man knows, as well as any other animal, on which side his bread 
is buttered ; we have only got to learn him what and where his 
place is, and he will keep it. When I first married, I had some 
trouble with my Jonas ; but I soon taught him that he had better 
be back again in the whale.’s belly, than employed in trenching 
upon my ‘woman’s rights!’ (A general disposition to laugh, 
which was, however, frowned down by the dignified Priestess.) 

“It is true, my sisters; we have only to assert our rights, 
and take them ! Man will never dare to rebel, if we are reso- 
lute. Overwhelm him with our strength — make him feel his 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


83 


littleness beside us, and he will slink into any hole to hide. I 
am myself in creed a non-resistant — (suppressed laughter.) 
I do not believe in pummelling truth into man ; forced conver- 
sions do not last, and should not. But I will tell you what 
sort of conversions I do believe in ; they are spiritual. Bow, 
bend, aye, break his spirit to your will, and then he is yours ; 
instead of being slave to him, he is your slave. This is what 
we w^ant. When he can be reduced to obedience, then he will 
be happy ; for when he has accepted us as his spiritual guides, 
and no longer dreams of lifting his thoughts, in rebellion, then 
will he always go right. They themselves are for ever confess- 
ing, that without us, as mothers, they would never — the greatest 
of them — arrive at any thing ; that they owe it all to us — all 
their greatness, all their goodness. Let us take the hint, and 
hold the spiritual birch over them always, and they will ever 
remain obedient, for their own good.” 

This speech was received with very general approbation ; 
though, that all did not recognise it as orthodox, became imme- 
diately apparent. A tall, thin, cadaverous-looking lady, with 
excessively black hair, and eyes that literally glistered as she 
rose — the huge ear-rings and multifarious trinkets about her 
person quivering wdth excitement — exclaimed, in a shrill 
voice — 

“ It is false! it is not true that we desire to make slaves of 
man. We are opposed to slavery — to slavery of all sorts ; and, 
although man deserves, on account of his oppressions of the 
poor negro, to be made a slave of, if human slavery were to be 
tolerated, yet we desire rather to. return good for evil ; and all 
we ask is equality in the Senate, in the Presidential chair, on the 
bench of justice, in the counting-house and work-shop. We 
waht our rights ; our right to marriage as a mere civil contract 

our right to choose with whom we shall enter into that coh- 

tract, whether colored or white man, and our right to annul that 
contract when it pleases us. What kind of freedom is it, when, 
if I choose to marry a man of color, no matter how noble he 


84 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


may be, I am to be mobbed and driven out of the society of my 
race ; while, if I am so unfortunate as to marry a white man, 
who turns out to be a brute and tyrant, as he is most like to do, 
and attempt to rid myself of the horrid incubus, by leaving him, 
or by suing him for a divorce, I am *equally mobbed by the 
hue-and-cry, and banished from society as an outlaw? We 
want our rights in marriage — we want equality. I can — ” 

Here the speaker was interrupted by a voice marvellously 
flute-like and lingering in its intonations : 

“ ‘ At which, like unhacked colts, they pricked their ears, 
Advanced their eyelids, lifted up their noses, 

As they smelt music.^ 

And cold shoulders were simultaneously turned upon the dark- 
haired and be-jewelled orator of amalgamation. 

The dufcet-toned interrogator, who, to the surprise of all 
eyes, appeared a squabby, cottony, pale-eyed, thick-lipped, 
lymphatic-looking personage, who wore a wig clumsily, and had 
no vestige of hair upon brow or violet eyelids, proceeded, in 
melifluous phrase — 

“We did not come here to talk about private grievances. 
The sister who speaks so fiercely of our rights, in regard to 
marriage, had better have had a little experience on the subject. 
She is, I should judge, considerably the rise of forty, and has 
never yet been married ; not even to one of the dark-browed 
children of Ham, towards whom she exhibits so decided a lean- 
ing. Now, I have been married six times already — (great sen- 
sation,) — and to white men, and gentlemen, at that; and con- 
sider myself, therefore, qualified to speak of marriage. Mar- 
riage is a great blessing ; let her try it when she gets a chance, 
and she will find it so ! (much bristling and fidgeting, the dark- 
haired woman looking daggers.) It isn’t marriage that is the 
great evil, against which we have to fight — nor it isn’t the 
slavery of the colored race, either. It is the slavery of our own 
race, of our own kith and kin, of our own blood and complex- 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


85 


ion. It is the emancipation of our own fathers, sons, and bro- 
thers, from the barbarous penalties of the penal code. Our 
erring fathers, sons, and brothers ; it is their cause, my sisters, 
it is their cause we are called upon to vindicate. According to 
our brutal laws, pne little frailty, to which we all may be sub- 
ject, — one little slip, which any, the purest' of us may make — 
subjects man to solitary incarceration for life, in which he is cut 
off from all loving communion with our sex ; or to the horrible 
penalty of death by the rope ! This, my beloved sisters, is the 
crying evil of the day ; and man, cruel man, is in favor of such 
inflictions. We must soften his flinty heart, through our charms. 
It is our duty, it is our mission, to effect amelioration in favor 
of the erring classes. We are all erring ; and in how much are 
we better than they? — except, that through our cunning, and 
in our cowardice, we have as yet escaped penalties which, under 
the same measure of justice, might as well have been visited 
upon us. I have visited the penitentiaries and prisons of many 
States, that I might carry consolation to the shorn and manacled 
children of oppression. I tell you that I have seen among them 
gods, whose shattered armor gleamed in light ! I have seen 
Apollo, with his winged heel chained to a round-shot ! I have 
witnessed more glorious effulg— ” 

Hiss-s-s-s !” ‘‘Nonsense!” 

“It was Mercury, the god of thieves, you saw with the 
round-shot at his heels !” said an oily voice ; and, as all eyes 
turned in that direction, the forehead of the speaker flushed 
crimson while she proceeded — 

“ It is not man at all ; it is we who shut ourselves up in tight 
frocks, who make hooks- and- eyes our jailors, and ribs of whale- 
bone our strait-jackets ! Let us first free ourselves physically, 
give our lungs and hearts room to. play, and then we may talk 
about open battle with man for our rights. But, as it is, to speak 
thus, is nonsense. We are weak, while man is strong ; we must 
fight him with other weapons than open force. While he laughs 
at our pretensions, let us, too, laugh at his foibles, and govern 
8 


86 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


him through them. It was to consult, as to some consistent and 
uniform system, by which v’^e should be enabled to accomplish 
this result, that we came together this afternoon. It has been 
well said, that our motto should be, ‘ The end justifies the 
means.’ To the weak and the determined^ this is a sacred 
creed, and we should go forthwith it in our hearts, and act 
upon it in all our relations towards men. It should be our 
business to get possession of them, body and soul. We need 
their influence, to advance our views, to obtain our rights. We 
should be all things to all men ; should believe in the Bible, in 
Fourier, in Swedenborg, in Joe Smith, or Mahomet, if neces- 
sary, so that the influence be gained. We must seek out every- 
where men who hold places of power and public influence, and 
win them — not to our cause, for that would be hopeless — but 
to ourselves ; and through ourselves to our cause. We must 
not scruple as to the means ; for ‘ the end justifies the means.’ 
We must find, by whatever stratagem, art, or intrigue, that 
may be available, the assailable points in the characters of those 
who may be of use to us, and secure them, at whatever risk of 
reputation ; for, as we will secretly sustain each other, we will 
at once dignify ourselves and our cause into the position of 
martyrdom, and be able to take shelter behind the omnipotent 
cry of persecution. There we are safe.” 

“Good!” “Good!” “Right!” “Right!” “Just the 
thing!” burst from all sides of the room; while the weather- 
beaten face, — that is, the forehead, — of the lithe, glib speaker 
flushed with momentary exultation, while she continued, with 
still greater emphasis — 

“ Thus banded, my sisters, if we are firm, faithful, and en- 
during, we may conquer the world. There is never a period 
when there is more than a dozen men who wield its destinies. 
There are nearly a dozen of us here present, and there are other 
spirits that I know, resolute and strong enough, to be our asso- 
ciates ; let us resolve, then, to govern those who govern ; and 
the romantic fragments of the life of a Lola Montes will have been 


« 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 87 

firmly conjoined in the fact of a governing dynasty, the sceptre 
of which shall be upheld by woman.” 

Storms of applause, during which the plain, Quakerish-looking 
speaker subsided into her seat. As she did so, there might 
have been "observed, under the flush of exultation which man- 
tled her brow, a singular obliquity of the left eye! Ha! 
Etherial ! 



88 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER VII. 

, INTRUSION. 

^Tis he ! I ken the manner of his gait — 

He rises on the toe ; that spirit of his 
In aspiration lifts him from the earth. 

Shakspeare. 

. -/ 

A barren-spirited fellow ! one that feeds 
On objects, arts, and imitations. 

Idem. 

This is a slight, unmeritable man. 

Meet to be sent on errands. 

Idem. 

We will now enter one of the upper rooms of the notorious 
Graham House, with the interior of which we have before been 
familiarised, and which had been reopened, on a modified 
basis. A single glance at the confused piles of manuscripts, 
books, and papers, scattered about the room and on the table, 
mingled with stumps, of pens and cigars, and a long-tubed 
meerschaum, showed that it could be no other than the charac- 
teristic den of a literary bachelor, who, wdth chair and table 
drawn close to the stove, sat there to show for himself, ear- 
nestly engaged in w’hat seemed to be the business of his life — 
writing. 

You saw in a moment that this was not a Northern man, for 
in addition to the long, black, and wavy hair, the dark, bronzed, 
and vaulting features indicated clearly a Southern origin. He 
w’as* evidently young — certainly not more than twenty-seven, 
judging, as one instinctively does, by contour of person and 
features, and not by the expression of the face. But that ex- 
pression, when you saw it, as he lifted his head, at once left you 
in doubt whether it could possibly belong to so immature a 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


89 


period of life. Although the brow was broad, and mild as that 
of a child, yet there was a solemn and unnatural fixedness in 
the whole face, which, united with the cold stillness of the great, 
gray, hollow eyes, told at once a dreary tale of suffering, which 
sent an involuntary shudder through your soul. Where the ex- 
pression rested most, it was impossible for you to tell ; but the 
feeling it conveyed was one of absolute horror. That a face, 
which seemed so young, should be one that never smiled ! — 
And could the story that it told be true } Could it be that for 
years that face had never smiled ? 

A light tap was heard at the door, and, with a momentary 
frown of vexation at the interruption, he turned his head, and 
a young man entered the room, with somewhat hesitating step, 
which showed that he was by no means certain of his ground. 

He was slight and thin, something below the average height, 
with even a darker complexion than that of the face we have 
just described ; his black hair, and preternaturally black and 
vivid eyes, glittered beneath straight, heavy brows, which nearly 
met. His nose was prominent and partly arched ; and there 
was, in the whole bowed bearing and cat-like gait of this per- 
son, an inexplicably strange and foreign look, which, alike in 
all countries, characterises that fated race which is yet an out- 
cast among the nations. 

His greeting was singularly expressive of eager appreciation, 
while that of his host to him was cold, distant, and merely 
polite. Pushing aside his writing materials, as he handed him 
a chair, Manton — for such was the name of our young writer — 
turned upon his visiter a frigid look of inquiry, and said, with 
a formality almost drawling — 

Doctor E. Willamot Weasel, I hope it is well with j^ou this 
evening ?” 

His visiter, in rather a confused manner, commenced — 
‘‘ Ye-es, yes — I — I fear I am intruding on your seclusion ; but 
p-pardon me, I cannot bear any longer to see you thus seclude 
yourself from all the amenities of social life. You need relaxa- 


90 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


tion ; your stern isolation here with the pen, and pen alone, is 
playing wild work with your fine faculties. Pardon me, if I 
insist upon it, that you must and should accept the sympathies 
of the men and women around you. In the doctrine of unity 
in diversity, Fourier demonstrates that there is nothing more 
fatal to consistent development of both body and mind, than 
entire pre-occupation in a single object or pursuit.” 

Detecting a shade of vexation, at this juncture, crossing the 
open brow of Manton, Doctor Ebenezer Willamot Weazel hast- 
ily reiterated his apologies. 

“ I beg of you not to mistake my zeal for impertinence. I 
have already received much good and many valuable truths 
from conversation with you, and I conceive myself under strong 
personal obligations of gratitude to you, that I hope may plead 
for me in extenuation of what you, no doubt, consider an im- 
pertinent intrusion. I would, as some measure of acknoAvledg- 
ment for such obligations, beg to be permitted to protest with 
you against this dangerous and obstinate isolation from all 
human sympathies, in which your life, dedicated to literary 
ambition, seems to be here fixed.” 

“ My good friend. Doctor Weasel, my life is my own, and 
my purposes are fixed. I need no sympathisers, sihce I am 
sufficient unto myself. They would only distract and minify 
the higher aims of my life. You may call it literary ambition, 
but I call it a settled and sacred purpose to achieve good in my 
day and generation. I am content, sir ! Do not attempt to 
disturb that contentment !” 

This reply was somewhat curtly delivered, and seemed to dis- 
compose the Doctor, who, however, hesitatingly persisted — 

‘‘ Ah ! ah ! ah ! yes ! I expected to hear something of the sort 
from you, of course, but I beg you to consider that, under the 
harmonic, law of reciprocation or mutual support and benefits, 
discovered by Fourier, and which lies at the base of all true or- 
ganisation, you have no more right, as an individual, to hold 
yourself aloof, intellectually and socially, from the great body 


ETHEBIAL SOFTDOWN. 


91 


of mankind who are \vorking for your benefit as well as for their 
own, than a rich man has to lock up his hoards of gold, and 
bury it where future generations may not reach it ! The social 
state Can only exist by individual concessions in favour of the 
whole.” 

“ Your argument,” was the cold response, ‘‘ like all gene- 
ralising postulates aimed at particular cases, overleaps its mark. 
I consider that I shall effect more earnest good by persisting in 
this isolation against which you protest. For as I do not ask or 
require the individual sympathies of my race, but rather choose 
the still-life of undisturbed sympathy and communion with 
nature, I feel that I shall accomplish more, far more, for 
humanity, in thus dedicating myself to her interpretation. 
Through me, as a medium, my fellow men may thus learn far 
loftier truths than they themselves might ever impart reciprocally 
amidst the babble of what you call social intercourse.” 

“But you do not exclude women, surely.? That would be 
unnatural ; for you know that the life of man cannot be com- 
pletely balanced, without the ameliorating presence and sub- 
duing contact of woman. He becomes a savage without her ; 
his passions are brutalised, and the man is spiritually and socially 
degrade.” 

“ An admirable truism. Doctor ! I honor and revere woman ; 
in her high place she is to us, emphatically — angel ! But this 
very reverence in which I hold her, prompts me to avoid con- 
tacts that may despoil me of my ideal. I am prepared to wor- 
ship her, but not to degrade or look upon her degraded. There 
is nothing, in the range of human possibilities, so hideous to me 
as such contact — for I would hold my mother’s image always 
uncontaminated. I am a stranger, sir. I make no female ac- 
quaintances at present here.” 

“Sorry,” said the Doctor, “ver}^ sorry, sir; for. my special 
mission in this case was to persuade you to give up your isola- 
tion, in favor of an acquaintance with a most noble and charm- 
ing woman, a friend of mine, who, having met with your papers 


92 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


in the journal you are now editing, is exceedingly anxious for 
an introduction, which I, in plain terms, have come to request. 
She is a woman of masculine and daring mind, and is taking 
the initial in most of the reform movements of the day, and 
particularly the most important of them all, the science of phy- 
siology as applicable to her own sex. She has taken the lead 
as the iirst lecturer on such subjects, and is accomplishing a vast 
amount of good. I am sure you will be much struck with her, 
and I never met two people whom I was more anxious to see 
brought together. You will appreciate each other, as physiology 
is one of your favorite subjects.” 

“Bah! a lecture- vyoman ! But I don’t mean to be disre- 
spectful, Doctor. You could have told me nothing that would 
have more firmly fixed^my resolution neither to be introduced 
to or know the person of whom you speak, on any terms what- 
ever! Your manly-minded women are both my disgust and 
abhorrence! — as what they choose to call manliness is most 
usually a coarse and sensual impudence, based on inherent 
immodesty, which renders them incapable of recognising the 
delicate unities of propriety, either in thought or deed. I fully 
concede a woman’s capacity for displaying the great and even 
loftier processes of intellection; but the moment she%nsexes 
herself, she and her thoughts become vulgarised. Such people 
are universally adventuresses, and of the most unscrupulous 
sort. I, as a stranger here, wish to run no risk of becoming 
entangled in their plausibilities. I am working for a full, free 
and frank recognition, by the social world, of my right to choose 
the place, the social circle rather, that I shall enter and become 
a part of. I do not wish to be dragged into such contacts, but 
to command them at my will !” 

“But, sir,’^ persisted the Doctor, “she admires your papers 
so fervently, and pities the cruel and self-inflicted isolation in 
which you live, with such ardent, disinterested and motherly 
warmth, that you can scarcely, in your heart, be so obdurate as 
to reject her genial overture— the sole object of which is, to 


ETHEEIAL SOETDOWN. 


93 


draw you forth into some participation with the milder humani- 
ties-^to make you feel that New .York is not really the savage, 
base and flowerless waste which we are led. to presume you 
consider it, from the attitude you have assumed toward its 
social conditions. You are killing yourself here with tobacco, 
wine and labour, while she would shbw that even self-immolated 
genius may find a warm place to nestle, in distant lands, 
and near the matronly bosom, in spite of cold and sullen self- 
reliance!” 

“ The fact of her being a matron,” frigidly responded Manton, 
‘‘ considerably modifies the general character of the proposition 
which she has done me the honor, through you, to communicate. 
But, Doctor, I must finally and definitively state to you that I 
do not, at present, wish to cultivate any female acquaintance 
whatever in the city of New York. I propose to wait until I 
can select instead of being selected.” And rising at the same 
time with an impatient movement, which might or might not, 
be mistaken for a desire to be left alone, Mr. Manton politely 
showed Doctor E. Willamot Weasel, who had now taken the 
hint, to the door. 


Almost the same moment after his discomfited visiter left, 
Manton hastily gathered up the scattered leaves of manuscript 
on his table, and muttering, as he thrust the roll into his pocket, 
‘‘ Curse the intrusion ! this ought to have been in the printers’ 
hands an hour ago, and yet it is not finished !” and snatching 
up his cap, he passed from the room, and left the house. 

Not long after, there came a sharp ring at the door of the 
Graham House, and the female servant, who hurriedly hastened 
to open it, was quite as sharply interrogated by a woman on the 
oQtside, who was closely veiled, and wore a sort of Quaker 
garb — 

‘‘ Is Mr. Manton in ?” 

“No, ma’am, he has just gone out.” 


94 


SPIEITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


Where is his room? I have a letter for him, which I wish 
to deposit in a safe place with my own*hands. Whatsis the 
number of his room?” she asked, in an imperative manner. 

‘‘ Ma’am, the gentleman is out. Can’t you leave the letter 
with me or the mistress ? We will give it to him when he 
comes.” 

‘‘No, I choose to place it myself. What is his number 
And as she spoke, she slightly unveiled herself. The servant 
seemed to recognise her face even through the dusk, and said, 
though rather sullenly, as she gave way for her to pass — 

“ Yes, ma’am, walk in. His room is No. 26, on the third 
floor.” The female glided rapidly past, and as the servant at- 
tempted to follow her, exclaiming, “ Ma’am, I will show you 
the number,” she answered hastily, “ Never mind, I know where 
the room is now !” and darted up the stairs. 

The servant muttered some droll commentaries on this proce- 
dure, which it is not necessary to repeat, and seeming to be 
afraid to complain to her superiors, dragged herself surlily back 
.towards her subterranean home. 

. In the meantime our light-footed and unceremonious caller 
had reached the third floor, and walked straight forward to the 
door of the room just left by Manton. She troubled herself 
with no idle ceremony of knocking, but walked confidently in. 


f 



ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


95 


CHAPTER IX. 

BESIEGED. 

Such forces met not, nor s.o wide a camp, 

When Agrican, with all his northern powers, 

Besieged Albracca, as romances tell. 

Paradise Regained. 

An hour after the last scene, Manton returned to his room, 
and, seeming greatly hurried, lit his lamp, and throwing him- 
self into a chair, seized his pen, muttering between his teeth, 
“ It must be finished to-night ! a man has no right to be tired !” 
He was drawing his writing materials towards him, to proceed 
with his work, when a something of strange disorder among his 
papers caught his quick eye. 

‘‘ Ah ! who has been disturbing my papers ?” and as a flash of 
suspicion shot through him, he sprang to his feet, exclaiming, 
‘‘ my trunks, no doubt, have shared the inquisition !” and step-* 
ping quickly to them, he threw up the lids. 

“ By Heaven, it is so I what accursed carelessness this is of 
mine, leaving everything unlocked in this fashion I” 

His first glance had shown him that the trunks had been dis- 
turbedj and a cautious effort been made to replace the contents 
as they were before. Uttering some energetic expletives of 
wrath, he knelt beside one to ascertain how far the examination 
had been carried, when, reaching the packages of letters and 
papers at the bottom, he saw there, too, unmistakable evidence 
of a pretty thorough examination having been held of their 
contents. 

If he had been enraged before, this filled him with uncon- 
trollable fury. He stamped his foot heavily upon the floor, and 
his whole frame shook violently, while with gnashing teeth he 
called down a fearful imprecation upon the head of this wretched 


96 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


violator, whoever it might be, of the sad and mournful secrets 
of his past life, which he had held sealed in his own bosom, so 
sternly, so long, and, alas ! so vainly. Those letters revealed 
all. Some prying reptile had thus slimed the holy penetralia 
of his proud life ! 

The very thought was horror — loathing ! A shudder of un- 
utterable disgust crept through him; an uncontrollable fury 
blazed through his soul ; his eyes glittered with almost demoniac 
fire; his face turned deathly white, and his teeth ground and 
clattered like the clamp of a wild boar’s tusks, and yet he 
made no tragic start ; he stood still, with his arms clutching 
each other across his breast, and his eyes looking out into the 
blank distance, through which their concentrated light seemed 
to pierce to some far object. He at length pronounced slowly — 

“ Yes, my curse shall follow'you ; be you man or woman, it 
shall overtake you in terror ! I feel the prophecy in me ! The 
wretch who has thus contaminated those chaste and loved me- 
mentoes, shall yet feel my curse ! My consciousness is filled 
with it ! I know not how, or when, or where ! my curse shall 
reach and blast the author of this sacrilege! — bah!” and his 
face writhed into the devilish mockery of a smile ; “it is 
almost sufficient vengeance, one would think, that the wretch 
found no money!” 

Starting suddenly forward, he commenced pacing to and fro 
with long strides, with knitted brows, compressed lips, and 
eyes bent upon the floor. — For more than an hour he thus 
silently communed with himself, without the change of a muscle 
in expression, when drawing a long sigh, he threw off this 
frigid look in a degree, merely saying in a low voice, “ My 
curse is good !” and returned to the table to resume his seat and 
his labors. 

As he did so, his eye fell upon a note directed to himself, 
which, as it had been placed in no very conspicuous position 
among the objects on the table, had, till now, escaped his. atten- 
tion. He reached it, and the dainty crow-quilled hand of the 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


97 


superscription, the snowy envelope, and the pure white seal, 
disclosed at once the woman. — He regarded it for a moment, 
coldly, and without any expression of interest or surprise, and 
with a slight sneer upon his face, broke the seal, when out 
slipped a gilt-edged note, which he opened and read aloud with 
a jeering tone : 

Friend — May I not claim to be thy friend in common with 
the whole world, who have learned to love thee, through thy 
beautiful thoughts ? Stricken, sad, and suicidal child of genius, 
may I not steal into the tiger’s lair of thy savage isolation, to 
bring one single ray of blessing, to tell thee how, at least, one 
human soul has throbbed to the seraphic eloquence of powers, 
that, alas ! — I appeal to your inmost consciousness ! — are being 
rapidly destroyed by your obstinate seclusion in labor, and by 
the vices of wine and tobacco, which are its necessary atten- 
dants. You have it in you to be saved ; your soul is tall and 
strong as an archangel; your vices are the withes of grass 
that bind you ; and love, social love, the calm and genial recip- 
rocation of domestic sympathies, can alone redeem you. 

You are proud — I know it ! but pride will yield to gentleness, 
and in a distant land among strangers, the tearless, motherless 
boy, will not reject a mother’s proffer of a mother’s yearnings. 
You naughty, haughty child, we must save you from yourself, 
in spite of yourself! Yours spiritually, 

Marie. 

Manton, whose face had, during this reading, writhed, with 
almost every conceivable expression, tossed the letter from him 
as he finished it, with the exclamation — ‘‘Pah! this must be 
Doctor E. Willarnot Weasel’s lecture- woman ! Impudent ad- 
venturess in every line, as I expected!” And he resumed his 
pen and his labors, continuing in a low voice as he commenced 
his writing — “ Unfortunate allusion, by the way, to the withes 
of grass — we cannot help being reminded of a certain Mr. 
Samson, and a Miss or Mrs. Delilah. Curse her ! how came 
9 


98 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


she to Speak of my mother ?” and grinding his teeth heavily, he 
proceeded with the work before him, without' paying any further 
attention to the circumstance. 

The greater portion of the night was spent in intense labor ; 
but, when, after a very late bath and breakfast, the next morn- 
ing, Manton went out to the office of the Journal for an hour, 
and returned, he was not a little surprised to find another missive, 
as neat and snowy as the first, awaiting him, on the table. 

He thought it must surely be the first, that he had, in some 
unconscious mood, re-enclosed in the envelope ; but, glancing 
around, he saw it lying open, where he had tossed it. 

“Gramercy! but she fires fast!’’ he said, with a droll look 
passing across his features, as he stooped down, his hands cau- 
tiously clasped behind his back, to survey more closely the deli- 
cate superscription — Mr. Stewart Manton^ Graham House^ 
Present. 

‘‘Present! present! but this sounds rather ominous! Can it 
be that my spiritual correspondent of last night is an inmate 
too ? My correspondent is evidently both in earnest and in a 
hurry ! What shall I do ? By my faith, I have a great mind 
to throw it upon the centre-table of the common parlor below, 
and let this benevolent lady reclaim her own, or else leave it to 
the irresistible access of curiosity, common to the sex, and pe- 
culiar to this queer house, to explore its unclaimed sweets. 
The first taste has quite sickened me. I have something other 
to do than listen to such inane twattle.” 

He continued for some moments to gaze upon the letter, 
while a half-sneering smile played upon his grave and melan- 
choly features. “ Well, but this must be a quaint specimen of 
a feminine, to say the least of it ! I have heard of these spi- 
ritual ladies before ! The character must be w^orth studying, 
though it seems to be transparent enough, too. Well ! we’ll 
see what she has to say this time, at any rate ! It can hardly 
be richer than the first ! Here it is !” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


99 


Friend — I know your heart. That proud heart of yours is 
at this moment filled with scorn for my poor words and humble 
proffers. But it does not affect me much, for well I know that 
this pride is the evil which ever strives in the unregenerate soul, 
to fence against the approaches of good. As yet this demon 
possesses thee, and, until conquered and humbled by love, you 
can never be saved. Thy physical life is poisoned — is poi- 
soned with tobacco — and it is through such poisons that this 
evil spirit of pride enters into thy soul. Thy spiritual vision is 
thus obscured, that you may not perceive the truth. I shall 
pray for you. My spirit shall wrestle with thine when you 
know it not, and God will help his humble instrument. May 
He soon move that obdurate heart of thine, proud boy ! 

Marie 

‘‘Well! but this is cool! decidedly refreshing ! This perti- 
nacious creature is surely some mad woman confessed, as she 
certainly is a most raging and impertinent fanatic ! Boy, for- 
sooth ! patronising. I should almost be provoked, were not 
the thing so egregiously ludicrous ! Well, well! it is consoling, 
at least, that I have found my good Samaritan at last. I shall 
preserve these precious epistles, as decidedly curious memoranda 
of this original type of the Yankee adventuress, for Yankee she 
must be, who has set out thus boldly on a speculation in the 
spiritualities. I think I have had enough of this trash now, as I 
intend to take no notice either of it or of the writer. I should 
suppose she might get discouraged.” 

The letters were thrown carelessly into a drawer, and Man- 
ton sat down to his work. 

The next morning, when Manton returned from the office, at 
the usual hour, what should meet his eye, the first thing on en- 
tering the room, but a third snowy missive, placed now more 
conspicuously, on the very centre of the table. The poor man 
stopped, frowned, then gradually his eyes distended into a wild 


100 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


stare, and lifting his hands at the same moment, he shouted 
out — 

“Good God! What, another?” and then, with a sudden 
revulsion of feeling, he burst into a loud, unnatural laugh. 
“ This is patience for you ! By heaven ! she dies game to the 
last! Well! let’s see what now, for I am beginning to be 
charmed with the progress of this thing. There’s an absolute 
fascination in such daring.” 

He snatched up the note, and opening it, read it sotto voce, 
with an indescribable intonation of contempt : — 

Friend — Ah, glorious soul, that I might call thee so indeed ! 
I have just read your poem in the Journal. Read it, did I say ? 
My soul has devoured it ! Again and again have I returned to 
the feast unsated. Ah me, that mighty rythm ! It has filled me 
with new strength and light ! On its harmonious flow the uni- 
verse of beauty, love and life has been brought closer to me — 
has been revealed in splendor and unutterable music, until I 
have sobbed for joy thereof, and prayed and wrestled for thee, 
with my Father above, that thou mightest be saved. It is ter- 
rible to think that a soul so godlike as thine should be unre- 
generate. I bless thee ! I bless thee, my son ! I pray for thee ! 
I am praying for thee ! I shall pray for thee always, until thou 
art saved ! Marie. 

“ Good ! I am in a fair way for salvation now, one would 
think ! This seems a strange character — such a mixture of 
fanaticism, cant, and, withal, appreciation ! That poem of mine 
was certainly an extraordinary one. I hardly expected to find 
any one that would appreciate it at first. But see ! she has 
already caught its subtle reach and meaning. Pooh ! what a 
fool I am ! This is perfectly on a par with all the other hyste- 
rical cant which I have received from this person. The proba- 
bility is, if the lines had been written by Mr. Julian Augustus 
Maximilian Dieaway, upon whose soft sconce she desired to 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


101 


make an impression (in the way of speculation), the same ex- 
travagant tropes and metaphors would have found their way to 
the snowy surface of this gilt-edged paper, through the deli- 
cately-handled crow-quill ! Curse it ! I shall order the cham- 
bermaid to stop the nuisance of these missives !” 

This letter was impatiently tossed into the drawer with the. 
others, and Manton threw himself into his chair; when, after 
sitting with his head leaning on his hands, moody and motion- 
less, for some time, he suddenly straightened himself, and drew 
from the heap of magazines and books before him a fresh-look- 
ing copy of the Journal. Turning over its leaves eagerly 

to that which contained his new poem, he perused it and re- 
perused it over and over again, with an expression of restless- 
ness and intense inquiry in his manner during the time. 
At last he drew a long breath, and threw the book back upon 
the table, exclaiming in a firm voice, ‘‘ No ! I am satisfied. 
This is no namby-pamby die-away rhyming — there is genuine 
stuff there ; that is true poetry, or I have it not in my nature to 
produce it. That cursed meddlesome woman has made me 
distrust myself for the moment ; by her extravagant praises, has 
made me doubt the genuineness of my own inspiration. Her 
letter is so evidently disjointed ranting, that it has shaken my 
self-reliance to have even read it. Curse her silly and imperti- 
nent legends, I shall read no more of them !” 

Poor Manton was evidently troubled now, at length ; and can 
the reader conjecture why this last letter had so excited him ? 
Had a subtle arrow found its mark ? Was there any thing in 
the poem really to justify the high-flown and ecstatic panegyrics 
of missive No. 3, in the snow-white envelope ? You shall see — 
you shall judge. Here is a true copy of the poem : — 

NO KEST. 

0 soul, dream not of rest on earth ! 

On ! forth on ! It is thy doom ! 

Too stern for pain, too high for mirth, 

On ! thou must, through light and gloom. 


9 


102 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


Would^st thou rest when thou hast strength 
Mated with the seraphim ? 

Time outlasting, all whose length • 

Fades, within thine ages, dim ? 

0 strong traveller, can’st thou tire, 

When, hut touching at the grave, 

' Thy worn feet, re-shod, aspire, 

' Winged, to cleave as Uriel* clave ? 

Rest ! ah, rest then ! he alone — 

God the Worker, thou the Drone I 

Soon yon atom, swiftly driving 
Past thee, in the upward race, 

Braver for the perfect striving. 

Shall assume the higher place. 

God, the Worker, knows no rest — 

Pause, and he of Him unhlest. 

Lo ! how hy thee all is flying ! 

Even matter outspeeds thee ! 

Stronger thou, yet thou seem’st dying — 

Fading down immensity. 

Rouse the quickened life to know I 
God works subtly, work thou so ! 

Thou art subtler than the wind. 

Than the waters, than the light. 

Than old Chaos, whom these hind. 

Beautiful, on axle bright. 

Yet thou sleepest, while they speed — 

God, of sleepers has no need ! 

Waiteth cloud, or stream, or flower. 

Robing meadows and the wood ? 

Waiteth swallow past its hour. 

Chasing spring beyond the flood ? 

Yet thou waitest, weak, untrue — 

God rebuketh sloth in you ! 

* “Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even/' 

Paradise Lost. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


103 


Sing the stars wearily, 

Old though and gray? 

• Spin they not cheerily 
Cycles to-day ? 

Look they like failing, 

Pause they for wailing. 

Since none may stay ? 

Systems are falling — 

Autumns have they ; 

Stars yet are calling 
Life from decay. 

Dead worlds hut gild them 
Dusted in light ; 

Dead times have filled them 
Fuller of might. 

Brightening, still brightening. 
Round, round, they go — 
Eternity lightening 
The way and the wo ! 

De Noto. 


CHAPTER 'X. 


\ 


‘‘once more to the breach.” 


Once more to the breach, my friends ! 

Once more ! 


Old Plat. 


1 


Poor Manton was not permitted to remain in peace at his 
labors long. On the afternoon of the same day, Doctor E. 
Willamot Weasel, scarcely taking time to announce himself by 
a sharp knock, bolted into the room, exclaiming — 

“Ah! my dear friend, pardon me; but the lady concerning 
whom I spoke to you, is now in the parlor below, and requests 
the pleasure of an interview.” 


104 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


A frown instantly darkened the brow of Manton, and he an- 
swered angrily — 

Sir ! you will remember that I expressed to you, most dis- 
tinctly, a disinclination for such an introduction. I told you I 
did not wish to know this woman, then, and I feel still less 
inclination to know her now.” 

‘‘ But, a-ah ! my dear sir, you would not surely be unkind 
enough to refuse to see the lady now, when she waits in the 
parlor, in momentary expectation of seeing you — for the ser- 
vant told her you were in ? It certainly can do you no harm to 
be courteous.” 

“ That’s a strong appeal to make to a Southerner, Doctor 
Weasel, it must be confessed.” 

“ Yes,” said he, rubbing his hands, ‘‘ I thought you could 
not disregard it. I am so anxious to bring you together ! Do 
come. I shall be delighted. Come ! pray come ! she is 
waiting.” 

‘‘ Doctor Weasel, I do this thing with great reluctance,” said 
Manton, rising. “ I suppose I must go ; but rest assured, I do 
not feel particularly obliged to you Tor forcing me into this posi- 
tion.” 

This was said in a very cold, measured tone ; but the Doctor’s 
delight at the prospect of accomplishing his favorite and benevo- 
lent scheme, was so great, that his excitement prevented him 
from observing it. 

“ Never mind, come along ; you will thank me for it, on the 
contrary, as long as you live.” 

Manton left the room with him, and when they reached the 
parlor, he was rapidly introduced to Mrs. Orne and her daugh- 
ter, who sat upon a lounge awaiting him. .The Doctor instantly 
darted out of the room ; and Manton was left vis-a-vis with his 
ecstatic correspondent. 

As the vroman rose to meet him, the blood mounted to her 
very plain face, and square, compact, masculine forehead. The 
child, which was an ugly, impish-looking girl, with a mean fore- 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


105 


head, wide mouth and projecting chin, nevertheless arrested the 
eye of Manton, as he sat down, by a mournful expression of 
suffering in her light gray eye. 

The w^oman was evidently embarrassed for a moment, by the 
studied coldness of Manton’s manner, whose eye continued to 
dwell upon the half-quaker, and half-tawdry dress, rather than 
upon the face that had at the first glance impressed him so 
disagreeably. 

“I have found you out, at last!” said the lady visiter, in a 
low, pleasing voice. ‘‘Now I have ventured into the tiger’s 
den, I hope he will not eat me I” 

‘ You are perfectly safe, madam !” was the stiff response to 
this sally. “But to what may I owe the honor of this visit? 
Is there anything I can do for you ?” 

The blood mounted quickly to the woman’s forehead as she 
answered hastily, “Yes, I wanted to know if you can furnish 
me with a copy of all your works 1 I have admired with so 
much intensity what I have seen — but I am afraid you are very 
much of a naughty boy — you look so cold and cross! I am 
almost afraid to ask you !” 

“I am very sorry, madam, I have written no works, as you 
are pleased to call them. What I have done is entirely frag- 
mentary, and I have not collected those fragments even for my- 
self,” was the unbending reply. 

“ Oh, yes, you have! I have seen many of them, and you 
need not be ashamed to own them, for there is nothing of the 

kind in literature to surpass them. Why, there ’s ,” and' 

she ran on with a ready list of what she termed works, not a 
little to the surprise of Manton, who only listened with a cold 
stare, and bowed profoundly, as she concluded with a high- 
wrought panegyric. 

“ I am sorry I have no such works in my possession, nor can 
I tell you where they can be obtained !” 

The woman grew very red in the face again, and bit her lips 
in vexation, while Manton remained silent. She soon rallied, 


106 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


however, and commenced a conversation upon the general lite- 
rature of the day, in which Manton, in spite of himself, was 
gradually interested, by a certain sharp epigrammatic method 
of uttering heresies, and bold paradoxes, which seemed to be 
peculiar to her mind, and which could not but prove refreshing 
to one, who, like Manton, most heartily detested commonplace. 

He, however, did not unbend in the slightest, and the woman, 
who finally, in despair of “ getting at him,” rose to depart, said, 
yet perseveringly, with winning badinage — 

“ I find you in a naughty humor to-day. You are as cold as 
an iceberg and sharp as a nor’wester. When you get to be a 
good boy, you may come and see me !” 

‘‘ When I do, madam, I shall surely come !” was the response* 
accompanied by a very low bow, and delivered in a tone that 
would have frost-bitten the ear of a polar bear. 

The discomfited woman hurried from the parlor with the 
blood almost bursting from her face, while Manton, turning on 
his heel, muttered — 

‘‘Well! if that does not freeze her off, she ought to be 
canonised !” 


CHAPTER XI. 

CARRIED BY STORM. 

You call it an ill angel — it may be so ; 

But sure am I, among the ranks that fell 

^ Tis the ^vstjiend e’er counselled man to rise ! 

Anon. 

Manton had reckoned without his host, in supposing that his 
self-constituted patroness had any idea whatever of being frozen 
off: on the contrary, her benevolent ardor had been only warmed 
still more, as he had abundant evidence, when, on returning 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


lOT 


from his office next morning, he found yet another snowy missive 
crowning the centre of his table. 

Monsieur Tonson, come again !” he exclaimed, as he seized 
the note, and opened it this time without hesitation, what can 
the incredible woman have to say now? Well, here it is !” 

My Friend — You heaped ice upon my heart yesterday. 
To-day, I feel chilled and stiffened, as if my very soul-wings 
had been frosted through your lips ! Why did you do so ? It 
was not magnanimous in you. You are proud, and beautiful, 
and strong, while I am plain, and weak, and lowly. . Was it 
worthy of a noble soul to treat with such harsh and cutting cold- 
ness a poor, feeble, and wayworn daughter of sorrow like my- 
self, wffio had come merely in the meek and matronly overflow 
of tenderness and appreciation for a poisoned, sick and erring 
chilcT of genius, to offe# him her sympathy in his dreary and 
unrelieved immolation of glorious powers at the unholy altar of 
ambition? Was it not unkind of you? Can you suppose that 
had you not been poisoned, body and soul, the demon pride 
would have thus overruled your better and your angel nature to 
such harsh rejection of the comforter, the Father had sent you 
in his mercy ? What have I asked of you, but that you should 
unbend this fatal pride, and accept of mortal genialities ? That 
you should spare yourself from yourself, and give something to 
others. Ah ! you will not always thus repulse the sympathies 
of your race — naughty, naughty boy ! hasten to be good and 
come to see me ! Marie. 

‘‘ Well! well! by heaven, the audacity of this thing soars to 
the sublime ! and yet there is some truth as w^ell as pathos in it, 
too ! Now, I come to thipk of it, it w^as unmanly of me to treat 
the poor woman so, just as if I expected she carried stilettoes or 
revolvers under her petticoats, or wore aromatic poison in her 
bosom, with a foul and treacherous design upon my life ! The 
fact is, I have made a bugbear of this creature in my imagina- 
tion, when she is nothing, in fact, but fool and fanatic combin- 


108 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


ed, with a little disjointed raother-wit. Curse the whole affair ! 
I wish she and her endless letters were in the bottom of the sea ! 
By these persistent impertinences she disturbs me in my work ; 
these distractions are unendurable ! I wish she w’^ere only safe 
in heaven. 

It is useless to give all the letters which poor Manton received 
within the next four or five days, but it is sufficient to say that 
at last, in a fit of veritable desperation, spleen and humor, he 
answered one of the last in a tone of hyperbolical exaggeration 
that would have put to shame, not Mercutio only, but the veri- 
table Bombastes Furioso himself. The effect was coldly studied, 
and behold the result. 

The next morning a servant informed him that a lady desired 
to see him in the parlor. 

Terror-stricken by the announcement, he nevertheless knew, 
in his conscience, that he had brought ^own the judgment upon 
his own head. He therefore felt it to be his duty to abide the 
consequences of his own imprudence, and W’ent down to wait 
upon his caller, wffio, of course, was no other than his cor- 
respondent. 

She received him with a flushing face, as seemed to be usual 
to her shrinking nature. She was this time wdthout her 
daughter. There were other persons . in the parlor, and this 
seemed to disconcert her somewhat, for she had evidently come 
full of some important disclosure. Although it was the latter 
part of winter, and a heavy snow had just commenced breaking 
up, which rendered the streets of New York almost impassable, 
she nevertheless proposed that they should go out for a long 
walk. Manton looked through the window into the sloppy 
street, opened his eyes a little, and assented. 

There was something wonderfully rare in the idea of a wo- 
man’s proposing a long walk on such a day, and Manton 
relished the hardiness and originality of* the thing. 

‘‘Well!” said he to himself, “I like her spunk, anyhow! 
She has shown herself in every way to be in earnest in what she 


ETHEEIAL SOETDOWN. 


109 


undertakes. Phew! I shall enjoy it! a woman in long petti- 
coats, wading a mile or two through a cold slush such as this ! 
After this, what is it that Madame w^on’t do ? I’ll lead her 
something of a round, at any rate, before she gets back.” 

These thoughts passed through his mind as he ran up-stairs 
for his cap. She met him as he came down, in the passage-way, 
and they passed out at the front door. 

“ You are a droll person,” said Manton, as they reached the 
street. 

Why ?” asked she, with a covert gleam in her eye. 

“ Why ? Because few w^omen w^ould have thought of choos- 
ing such a day as this for a walk.” 

I care nothing for trifles ! Misfortune has taught me to dis- 
regard them. Suffering makes us hardy.” 

Manton looked down at her with surprise ; for, of all things 
on earth, the most disagreeable to him, was that commonplace 
timidity, and shrinking from trifles, which is so ludicrously cha- 
racteristic of American women. He did not wish to see w^oman 
unsexed, but contemned her puerile and unnecessary cowerdice. 

His companion now proceeded with great animation to follow 
up the favorable opening thus effected, with a rapid and pathetic 
sketch, in outline, of her sad and suffering life. 

She had been married by her parents to a sordid lout of a 
Quaker, in J^ew England, whose horrid barbarities and perse- 
cutions had finally compelled the weak and hitherto unresisting 
■woman to seek a separation, the scandal of which had roused 
against her the relentless animosity of the w^hole body of New 
England Quakers, who finally carried their brutal persecution to 
the extreme of assisting her yet more brutal husband, in rob- 
bing her of her dear and only child, under the plea that she was 
neither a suitable nor capable person to have charge of it. That, 
after a long period, spent by the distracted mother in roaming 
up and down the land, in search of aid and comfort, she had at 
length succeeded in enlisting some noble and benevolent souls 


110 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


in her cause, who finally rescued the child, by strategy or force, 
and restored it to its weeping mother’s arms. 

In addition to this sad tale of suffering Connected with her 
private history, which was most skilfully and artistically worked 
up, she had another, of public martyrdom, which was, to Man- 
ton, far more impressive. 

Through obscurity and poverty, this resolute and daring wo- 
man had dedicated herself to the amelioration of the physical 
evils of her helpless sex. She had, with unflagging ardor, stu- 
died the books of anatomical science, the diseases of her sex, 
and the wisest means of cure. And thus, in addition to having 
been the first woman in New England to publicly assert that 
there is no true marriage but in love, she had also led the way 
in announcing to women their sanitary duties to themselves ; 
that they must learn to heal their bodies, and leave the other sex 
to take care of their own diseases ; that delicacy as w^ell as 
utility prompted this course. 

This idea at once met the approbation of Manton, to w^hom 
its assertion w^as comparatively novel, but w^ho had ahvays 
deeply felt the lamentable helplessness of woman, and the un- 
natural relation of the male members of the profession to them. 

The brave and hearty manner in which this singular w^oman 
had evidently breasted alone the popular prejudice, in a cause 
w'hich he saw', at a glance, to be so just and nobly utilita- 
rian, for the first time moved his sympathies somewhat in her 
favor, in spite of his contempt and disgust for women who ven- 
tured beyond their sphere. 

The vocation of a learned nurse to diseased persons of her 
own sex, was clearly to him not beyond the proper sphere of 
woman, but a most important, legitimate, and — however little 
recognised, conventionally — the most honorable and useful. 
He could not but respect the w'oman, w’hatever her eccentricities 
might be, who could be brave and true enough to assert effect- 
ively to her sex, the natural and inevitable mandate, ‘‘ Know 
thyself!” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


Ill 


There was something chivalrous in the thought — a generous 
daring, a martyr spirit, that could not fail to arrest a nature in 
itself, rashly, scornful of all that was merely conventional, and 
whose untamed, half-savage soul rejoiced in all novelties that 
expressed to him a higher utility than mere forms conveyed. 

The walk was continued for hours ; and still further to try her 
nerves, during this long conversation, Manton turned through 
many intricacies into the most darkened labyrinths of the vice- 
profaned metropolis. 

The woman never flinched ; nothing seemed to appal her, 
and, as they threaded rapidly the dingy alleys of the “ Five 
Points,” she had an acute theory or a daring speculation for 
each evil, the external form of which they successively en- 
countered. 

There was a vigor and originality in all this, as coming from 
a w^oman, that interested Manton in spite of himself. Plain, 
uncouth, and eccentric as was this scorned “ lecture-woman,” 
he could not but confess to himself, as they returned mud-be- 
draggled and tired enough from that long walk, that his respect 
for her had very much increased. 


112 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XII. 

SPIRITUAL CONFIDENCES. 

And under fair pretence of friendly ends, 

And well-placed words of glozing courtesy, 

Baited with reasons not unplausible. 

Wind me into easy-hearted man. 

And hug him into snares. 

Mask of Comtjs. 

We shall follow the bedraggled heroine of the last chapter, 
begging leave of the reader to ‘‘ see her home.” 

Mark with what an elate and vigorous step she trips it up 
Barclay Street into Broadway, after taking leave of Manton at 
the door of the Graham House. One would think that she 
should surely be tired, after that tremendous morning’s work, 
trudging and splashing through the dirtiest mire of three-fourths 
of the great city. But no — she. springs in her gait, and her 
strange, animal eye, glitters fairly with a devilish obliquity, 
which has for the moment usurped its expression. She does 
not mind that people turn and stare after her dragging and be- 
spattered skirts — not she ! — her very soul is possessed with the 
pre-occupation of an ecstatic gloating over some great conquest 
achieved, or closely perceived already in the prospective future 
into which she glares. 

We shall see what we shall see — only follow, still follow. 
She has turned up Broadway, and threads the great throng there 
with rapid glide, as street after street is passed. Ah, now we 
have it ! She crosses — this is Eighth Street ! There, in Broad- 
way, near the corner, stands a great house, with wide-open 
door ; the smeared and dirty lintels, the greasy latch, the wide, 
uncarpeted hall of which, at once reveals it to be one of those 
miscellaneous and incomprehensible edifices, which are not 


ETHEHIAL SOFTDOWN. 


113 


unfrequently met with on the great thoroughfare, and the uses 
of which are not generally more specifically known, than that 
they are fashionable boarding-houses. 

Into this ever-gaping entrance she wheeled, and darted up 
the broad, uncarpeted stairway, w’hich she continued to ascend 
with almost incredible ease and swiftness to the fifth story. When 
near the end of a long and narrow passage, she paused before 
one of the doors, and tapping it slightly, entered without farther 
ceremony. 

A handsome and well-dressed woman, who was engaged in 
writing at a small escritoire, looked up indifferently as she 
entered, but the moment she caught the expression of the new- 
comer’s face, she sprang to her feet, throwing down the pen, 
and with a strangely shrill and unmusical laugh, screamed. out 
in a most inconceivably voluble style — 

Why, I declare! Marie, what’s the matter.^ Your eyes 
are almost bursting out of your head 1 You look as if you had 
found a bag of gold, and meant to give me half! Why, bless 
the woman, how she looks! Have you caught him at last? 
Well, we’re in luck ! I’ve caught my man for sure ! He’s been 
here all the morning, he’s just left! Why, how the woman 
looks ! She keeps staring so ! You haven’t gone crazy for joy, 
have you ? Now, do tell ! how have you managed to catch 
that insolent baby, you seemed to have set your heart on so ? 
Why, how muddy the woman is !” she shrieked, looking down 
at the condition of her dress. ‘‘ Ha ! ha ! ha ! ha ! Do tell, 
what sort of a game have you been playing ? Did you have to 
hunt him through a pig-sty ?” 

The woman had been standing motionless, in the meantime, 
with distended eyes and compressed mouth, stretched in a rigid 
smile of supernaturally savage exultation. She gazed towards 
the face of the speaker, but did not seem to listen to her, or see 
her features. She looked the abstracted embodiment of 
triumphing evil. Very soon her stiffened lips quivered slightly, 
10 * 


114 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


while the voluble lady stepping forward, shook her sharply by 
the shoulder, shrilling out again — 

‘‘ Do look at the woman ! Why, what can be the matter ? 
Can’t you talk ? The cat’s got the woman’s tongue surely ! I 
did not think you were so much in earnest about that green boy ! 
Why, I could twist him about my finger like a tow-string ! I 
have achieved something in conquering my man!” 

Y-your man 1” said the woman slowly, interrupting her. 
But these words were accompanied by a look of such strange 
and taunting significance, that the other turned instantly pale and 
sprang back, as if she had received an electric shock from those 
singular eyes, that fell upon her for a moment with their evil 
obliquity, and then returned instantly to their natural expression. 
‘‘ Wh-why, what do you mean ?” stammered the other angrily. 

The woman only answered with a pleasant smile— “Now 
don’t be a jealous fool, Jeannette Shrewell — I shall never inter- 
fere with your schemes if you don’t with mine.” 

“ Yes I but because you knew Edmond long ago,” continued 
the other in a fierce and shrewish voice, “ you dare to insinuate 
to me that he too has passed through your hands!” 

The woman broke out into a loud laugh — “ Why, what a 
child you are ! You know what my relations to Edmond are, 
perfectly. Spiritual — purely and spotlessly spiritual. I should 
no more think of him than of my grandfather.” 

“Spiritual!” shrieked the other, springing forward; “do 
you dare to use that stupid cant to me ? Keep it for the sap- 
headed boys and senile drivellers that you decoy with such bait, 
to plunder. You shan’t insult me to my teeth with it.” 

The speaker, whose physical energies were far more vehement 
and overbearing than the other, seemed to have entirely awed 
her. She sank meekly into a chair, turned very pale, and lift- 
ing her eyes with an humble look, she said, in a low imploring 
voice, “ Now, Jeannette, please don’t be so violent. I did not 
mean to taunt or insult you. You have altogether mistaken me, 
dear friend. Now, please be calm.” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


115 


But the other, whose long black curls still writhed and qui- 
vered, like the snakes of the Gorgon head, with rage, stood 
towering before the suppliant, as if she meant to crush her ; and 
as she thus stood, she really looked superb. 

Her profile was delicately chiselled and Roman, with large, 
• dark gray eyes, thin lips, and fine chin; and now that every 
feature was inspired with anger, the eye ceased to be offended 
by their habitual expression of selfish, cold, and sharp intellec- 
tion. She continued, quite as vehemently — 

“You have sown the wind, and you must reap. I have 
heard thiS' vile insinuation before of something between you and 
Edmond at B.” 

“Jeannette! Jeannette! it is false! every word of it. It is 
a vile slander of my enemies. Ask Edmond himself — he will 
tell you it is so.” 

“ Yes ! yes ! I know it is false. But who gave circulation to 
these reports? Hey? Your enemies, were they ? Your ene- 
mies must have a great deal to do, that they keep themselves 
busy with these manifold stories of your adventures. Who was 
it aspired to the eclat of any affair with the rich, generous, 
learned, and travelled Edmond? Who was it dragged him, 
through his unsuspecting recklessness of conventional usages, 
into conditions which rendered him liable to such an imputa- 
tion ? Who boasted of it, and attempted to place him in the 
same category with the dupes and gulls and fools she had 
already ruined and plundered? Hey? Who was it? Marie 

, I know you,” and she stretched herself to her full height ; 

but, had her vision not been blinded by passion, she might have 
perceived a cold and scarcely perceptible smile of scornful in- 
credulity pass over the face at which she pointed her sharp 
finger. “I know you, woman ! Beware ! beware how you 
cross rny track with Edmond ! You had better rouse the sleep- 
ing tigress with her young in your arras. He shall be mine ! I 
have sworn it ! One year ago, when I heard of his return from 
Europe, and left everything, mother, sisters, friends, and came 


116 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


on to this city, a thousand miles, alone and unprotected, that I 
might throw myself in his way, I swore that he should be mine. 
I had watched his career for years, from a distance, and he had 
grown to be my ideal. When he became, first the pupil and 
them the expounder of the new philosophy in France, I too be- 
came its student ; with unwearied labor I mastered its prodi- 
gious science, for I divined the purpose of the man. I knew 
he must return to his own country, and become its exponent 
here, and that then my time would come. 

“ I studied the German, the French, and the Italian ; with all 
which languages I knew him to be familiar. I acquainted my- 
self with the literature of each, that I might be able always to 
speak with him in the tongues and of the themes of which his 
long residence in Europe had made the associations most 
pleasant. Armed thus, cap-a-pie, I have met him at last, as I 
felt it was my destiny to do. 

I have attracted him ; I have all but conquered him. That 
man shall be my lover! Ay, woman, he shall be my lawful 
husband I Cross my track in any way, if you d-a-a-r-e ! I know 
your arts ; I will render them for ever unavailing to you ; I will 
explain them, and expose them. Cross my track, then, if you 
d-a-a-r-e !” and, as she hissed out the words between her teeth, 
she stooped forward and shook her finger in the face of the now 
actually trembling woman. “ Remember I our compact is, you 
let me alone, and I will let you alone ; you help me, I’ll help 
you ; cross me, I destroy you !” 

“Is that all?” murmured the woman, in a soft voice, open- 
ing her eyes, which had been closed during the greater part of 
this tirade, while, at the same time, the old obliquity became 
for a moment apparent. 

“ Why, Jeannette, I never dreamed of any thing else. I 
would sooner cut off my right hand than interfere with you, in 
any respect. Our two courses are entirely different. You have 
one object and one species of game to hunt down, W’hile I have 
another. We shall not clash!” and seeing the features of the 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 117 

other relax from exhausted passion, she leaned forward with a 
pleasing smile. 

‘‘ Just to think, you stormy child ! I had hastened home to 
tell you of my good fortune, and you so overpower me as to 
make me forget all I had to tell. You have frightened me 
sadly, Jeannette, and all about nothing. But I’ve got him — 
I think he’s booked at last!” 

“ Pooh I” said the other, sinking into a chair. Well, I 
asked you ever so long ago; how did you manage it? You 
seem to have had a great deal more trouble this time than usual. 
He does not seem to have been very civil to you heretofore, I 
should think.” 

‘‘No!” said the other, in a low, hoarsened tone, while the 
blood mounted in crimson flush to her forehead, not to her 
cheeks. This nice discrimination is very necessary to a true 
apprehension of such a character. “ No, he has acted like a 
sullen cub, heretofore, a perfect young white bear, with his in- 
solent pride, and clumsy haughtiness ! He is the most insulting 
and impracticable boor I ever took hold of!’ 

“ Ah ! I perceive you are splenetic !” 

“No! It is simply annoying, that the insuflerable fellow 
should give me so much trouble. Why, only think, he posi- 
tively refused to be introduced to me — said I was a shallow ad- 
venturess, and that he did not wish to know me — even when 
our Doctor Weasel went to him, with a special request on my 
part for such an introduction!” 

“ Oh, yes ! but our Doctor is proverbially awkward in such 
matters. No doubt he spoiled it all in the manner of the 
request.” 

“ Well, but you know, if the Doctor is awkward, he’s got 
money, and as long as he believes in Fourier and Sw^edenborg 
as devotedly as he does now, we can use his purse. * But to 
proceed : That sullen Southerner not only refused to be intro- 
duced to me, in the most insulting terms, but when I wrote him 
three or four of my most irresistible billet-doux, that never 


118 


SPIEITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


failed before, he treated them with what I suppose he meant to 
be silent contempt, for he did not answer one of them, though 
I had taken the pains to place them all upon his table with my 
own hands, during his absence, and find out all I could concern- 
ing him at the same time. 

“I found the key-note, however; the boy loved his mother, 
and has been playing hyaena with the rest of the world ever 
since she died, and been endeavoring to imagine himself a mis- 
anthrope, with a life dedicated since solely to the ambition of 
achieving, in her name, good for mankind. This discovery, 
privately made, put me fully in possession of all I wanted to 
know of his weakness. I sa^v' he was earnest and chivalrous, as 
his origin implies, and proudly secretive, so far as the privacies 
of his life were concerned. So I at once felt that this incrusta- 
tion of reserve with which he had fenced about his life, could 
only be broken down by a coup de main, 

‘‘ I determined to come down upon him, by surprise, in spite 
of everything. I called on him, and sent our trusty Doctor up 
to bring him to the parlor per force. The ruse succeeded so 
far as to effect an introduction ; but, to tell you the truth,” and 
her forehead fairly blazed while she spoke, “ I never was treated 
with such insolent and frozen hauteur in ray life bfefore ! I went 
away with my ears tingling and blood on fire, but I cursed him 
in my very heart, and swore to have a woman’s vengeance ! 
You remember how sick I was that night. Oh, God ! such 
furies as tortured me ! I scarcely slept ; but a happy thought 
came to me just about morning. 

‘‘ He was a poet — his brow revealed that — but with charac- 
teristic sternness he had yet published nothing which could be 
accounted the highest expression of his inmost life. He had 
made his way in literature rapidly and brilliantly through a novel 
combingtion of style, in which the essential elements of prose 
and poetry were combined ; but had never yet ventured to asso- 
ciate his proper name with anything bearing the forms of poetry. 

Now, the Doctor had told me that the poem, under the 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


119 

soubriquet of ‘ De Noto,’ in the last number of the Journal, 
was his, and it at once flashed across me — appreciation ! appre- 
ciation! The young poet has stolen timidly forth, under 
disguise, with this myth clear from his soul! He does not 
expect to be understood at once, and any prompt appreciation 
will overwhelm him from the very suddenness* of the thing ; and 
in his delighted surprise he would yearn towards the acknow- 
ledged devil himself. 

I sent him another note expressing that intense appreciation 
for which I knew he was craving. He treated it with the neglect 
that he had the others ; but I somehow felt that I had madeany 
mark. I called this morning, and as I knew his contempt for 
mere conventional forms, I ventured upon a dashing ruse de 
guerre. 

‘‘ I challenged him, for I knew his own personal hardiness, to 
take a long walk through all the slop of the thaw. With a stare 
of surprise he accepted it. I felt even then that my point was 
half gained. There were people in the parlor, and my object 
was to get him alone with myself. I felt that I had already 
touched one weakness, and my object now was to arrest his 
chivalrous sympathies in behalf of my forlorn and unprotected 
martyrdom to the cause of woman in her resistance to the 
brutalities of the marital law, and her right of proclaiming to 
her sisterhood the sanitary laws of health, in which they have 
been kept in profound ignorance by the ‘ profession.’ 

At first, I arrested his attention by the daring of the position 
which I had assumed, and then aroused his sympathies by a 
fervent relation of the wrongs inflicted on me by my brutal 
husband. The story was old, but I managed to throw into it a 
great deal of feeling, for there is nothing like a tale of persecu- 
tion to arrest chivalrous minds all over the world. We under- 
stand all these propositions as scientific ! When I parted with 
him he smiled upon me, for the first time, genially. I am sure 
of him now !” 

I should think you might be!” 


120 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

CLAIRVOYANT REVELATIONS. 

What see you there, 

That has so cowarded and chased your blood 
Out of appearance ? 

Shakspeare. 

In a good-sized, neatly-furnished apartment, of a large house 
in Bond Street, about two weeks after the incidents which were 
related in the last chapters, a group was assembled, about nine 
o’clock in the evening, which consisted of Manton, the woman 
Marie Orne, her daughter, and Dr. E. Willamot Weasel, of 
whom we have before spoken. 

The dark eye of Doctor Weasel glistened with benevolent 
delight as he gazed upon the group, from which he sat some- 
what apart. Manton was seated on a chair near the glowing 
fire, with the mother on a low stool on one side of him, and the 
daughter kneeling on the other, while both with upturned reve- 
rential eyes drank in eagerly each word that fell from his lips. 
They seemed to be enchained, enchanted, while he spoke ; and 
the mother, in the almost total speechlessness of her rapt appre- 
ciation, could only venture to trust her trembling voice in low, 
whispered exclamations ; while the sad eyes of the impish-look- 
ing daughter imitatively stared unutterable things. 

The woman’s subtle suggestiveness had roused the brain of 
Manton, and fully drawn him out on his favorite themes ; what- 
ever of natural eloquence he possessed, and he possessed much, 
flowed smoothly now, for, in spite of himself, his frozen heart 
had been warmed by the unwearying deference which he met 
with from these people. 

The lamps burned brightly, the hearth glowed, and the eyes 
of all were bent upon him with genial warmth and admiring 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


121 


earnestness. The north wind howled cold without, to remind 
him of the long, harsh winter of his discontent,” wdiich had 
for ten weary years been unrelieved by any approximation to a 
scene thus flushed with the sanctities of domestic quiet. Manton 
always idealised woman — he idealised everything. He was a 
poet. The very presence of woman was hallowed to his imag- 
ination. There was a thrill of sweet fancies and gentle memo- 
ries conveyed to him, in the very rustle of a silken gown. He 
adored, he worshipped woman, as she lived in his memory — 
the holy attributes with which he invested her, penetrated and 
held him enchained in peaceful awe. He could not, he dare 
not believe evil of her, if she bore the semblance of good, in 
thought, or deed, or life. 

He had shrunk thus long from contact with her, not because 
this interval of self-inflicted separation had been other than 
a weary penance of yearning, but that his fastidious nature 
dreaded the common contact, which might degrade or mar that 
ideal of love, which woman personated to him, and in the wor- 
ship of which he had found the strength for brave deeds. 

It was the W’eakness, the petty flippancy, the commonplace- 
isms of woman, from which he shrank. He believed that her 
spiritual strength should equalise her with man’s physical strength 
in disregarding common fears, paltry conventionalities, and con- 
temptible topics. The miserable skeleton of soul and body, 
which the world calls “ wmman of society,” was more horrible 
to him, by far, than the actual contact with her dry bones in a 
prepared skeleton would have been — for where one was a com- 
paratively pleasing object to his eye as a philosopher, the other 
was but the painted, dim-eyed, ghastly spectre of a living death. 

There was in this w’oman, at least so far as he could judge, 
a total abandon to her natural impulses, which seemed to utterly 
repudiate those restrictions w^hich are merely commonplace. This 
was refreshing to him, from its novelty, at any rate, in contrast 
with the insipidities he so much dreaded, although his taste had 
from the first been constantly offended. 

1 


122 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


Yet she seemed so utterly lawless and quietly defiant of what 
die world, that works in harness, might say, he could not help 
respecting her for it. It was a new things in his life, to meet 
with a woman, sufficiently heroic, to face the martyrdom that 
she was daring, for so elevated and noble an aim as the emanci- 
pation of her own sex from the conditions of utter helplessness, 
into which their ignorance of the laws of life had sunk them. 

Besides, she had shown so much earnest patience with his 
rude pride, had followed up its aberrations with such a matronly 
tenderness, exhorting him only, and unceasingly, to be at rest 
— a rest, the need of which his proud and fainting soul had con- 
fessed so often to his inward consciousness. And then this fine 
appreciation — ah, wffiere is the young poet who can withstand 
appreciation ? And then such delicate deference in trifles ! 

He had spoken incidentally of his taste in dress ; and now 
the mother and daughter were dressed in the most graceful and 
faultless simplicity ! The heart of Manton was touched. He 
felt grateful and pleased with these strange Samaritans to him 
in a strange land. 

On a slight pause in the conversation, the woman, still gazing 
up timidly into the face of Manton, changed the theme sudden- 
ly, by asking him, 

‘‘ What do you think of Clairvoyance ?” 

‘‘ The world is not old enough yet, by twenty years, I think, 
to answer that question.” 

“ My reason for asking the question, w’as, that I have some 
strange premonitions myself, which I cannot explain. You will, 
no doubt, be able to explain the mystery at once — ” 

‘‘ Yes!” interrupted Doctor Weasel, eagerly, “ do let us have 
you examine the matter ! Facts have come wdthin my own 
knowledge, concerning revelations which have been made by 
her, that are the most extraordinary I ever knew. For instance, 
wffien she has been brought into' clairvoyant rapport with indi- 
viduals whom she has never seen or heard of before, she has 
revealed to them the whole history of their lives.” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


123 


“ This unexpected enunciation of their life-secrets to men, 
must of course be productive of strange scenes occasionally,’^ 
said Manton, ii^a tone which had suddenly become cold. 

“ Oh, very curious and interesting! very curious!” exclaimed 
the Doctor, quickly. “ Marie, do relate to him that incident 
of the bloody hand, that you have so often told me.” 

‘‘Well,” said she, “it has been some years since that a 
number of my friends, who knew of this gift of mine, were in 
the habit of inviting me to their respective houses, to meet 
friends of distinction, who were curious to observe the experi- 
ments, either upon themselves or upon others. 

“ On one occasion I was invited to meet a celebrated physi- 
cian of this city, whose reputation for purity of character and 
life was very high. There were no parties present but my 
friend, this physician, and myself. Such an arrangement, I 
afterwards understood, had been made at the particular request 
of the physician himself, who desired that there should be no 
other person present but his host at the interview. 

“ When the physician placed his hand upon my head, as is 
the necessary formula to bring me into spiritual communion 
with my interrogator, I relapsed almost immediately into the 
syncope of the clairvoyant state, and of course became entirely 
unconscious of what I uttered in that condition. But our host, 
who was his most intimate friend, has given me many times the 
following explanation of the scene : — 

“ He says that when the physician placed his hand upon my 
head, I first said from the sleep, ‘ I am content ! All is pure 
here — this is a holy soul — one that is regenerate and will be 
saved!’ and then that while I was recounting his many deeds 
of kindness to the poor and friendless, and the rich, I suddenly 
shrank back, exclaiming, ‘ Blood ! blood ! blood ! There is blood 
upon this hand ! This soul is darkened now with blood ! Here 
is some fearful crime! Murder has been committed by this 
hand; everything seems red beneath it!’ My friend says the 
doctor staggered back as if he had been shot, on hearing this, 
11 


124 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


turned pale as death, and swooned on the floor ; and after he 
recovered, acknowledged that he had committed- murder and fled 
from the consequences ; the name by which he |v^as now known 
was an assumed one, and he implored his host not to expose 
him to the penalty of the gallows by revealing these terrible 
facts. 

“ My friend, of course, did everything he could to relieve 
him on that point, and assured him that he would never breathe 
the fact w^here it could injure him; that the purity of his life 
for so many years had cancelled the enormity of the crime, so 
far , as society was concerned. 

“But in spite of all this, the wretched and guilty man left 
the house in overwhelming despair, and the last I have heard of 
him was that he had locked himself in his own house, and was 
killing himself with the most unheard-of excesses in drinking 
brandy, to which vice he never before had been addicted. 

“ When I realised the tragic results of this fearful insight, 
with which I .seem to have been mysteriously endowed, my very 
soul was shaken with sorrow ; and since that time my spirit has 
wrestled in agonies of prayer with God, that this poor child of 
crime and headlong vices might be ‘ saved P ” 

As the w^oman uttered these last words, Manton recognised, 
for the first time," and with a shudder, a peculiar obliquity of 
the left eye. His soul was chilled within him ; and for the mo- 
ment, the light of the glowing room was darkened as if the 
shadow of drear winter had passed over and through it. 

Doctor Weasel exclaimed gaily, “ Is not that extraordinary ? 
I assure you, I have myself witnessed things in connection with 
this power of hers, quite as inexplicable, though happily not so 
tragic.” 

“ It sounds strangely enough,” said Manton, shortly. 

“I assure you I have no means of accounting for these 
things,” said the woman in a meek, deprecatory tone. 

“ Suppose you demonstrate it, madam, in my case ;” and a 
slight sneer, which crossed the face of Manton, whose manner 


ETHERIAL 80FTD0WN. 


125 


had entirely changed, did not escape the hawk-like quickness 
of the woman’s eye. ‘‘ My life, I am willing to submit to the 
scrutiny of your’ inscrutable sense.” 

“ Oh, by all means !” exclaimed Doctor Weasel, springing to 
his feet in a paroxysm of delight. “ Let us have the experi- 
ment, by all means ! Do please place your hand on the top of 
her head !” 

Manton turned, and with a bow most studiously deferential, 
seemed to ask of the lady her permission to do so. 

Oh, yes, yes,” and her head w^as bowed forward to meet 
his upraised hand ; while the daughter, who seemed to under- 
stand the thing, either from previous experience, or from some 
private signal, rose from her clinging position about his knee, 
and stepped back, leaving the two alone, without other contact. 

In a few moments after the hand of Manton had rested upon 
the meek, submissive head of the woman before him, she com- 
menced exhibiting the common and preliminary attitudes, 
muscular retchings of the throat, nervous twitchings of the lips 
and limbs, accompanied by the apparently palpable, organic 
changes, which are recognised to be symptomatic with well- 
known conditions of the mesmeric sleep. 

Manton watched all these phenomena with the sharpest atten- 
tion, and then, as the lips began to move as if in inarticulate 
enunciation, he leant forward over her, and asked — 

“ What can you tell us of the soul, with which you are now 
in communication ?” 

Afte;- several preluding and spasmodic efforts to articulate 
sounds, the Clairvoyant at length said, in a voice only distinct 
above a whisper — 

“ I see light ! all light ! — pure, holy light. It fills the universe 
with a mild radiance! I can see no blurs, no clouds in the fore- 
ground. I can see only angels, seraphs, and seraphim, and all 
forms of light revolving in the sphere of this mighty soul !” 

“ Is there no evil there ?” said Manton.* 

“ No, I see none ; I see only white light.” 

11 * 


126 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


“But- look close — perhaps you might find something dark. 
Look long and steadily into the world you visit — see if there 
be not clouds there.” ^ 

There was a pause. The lips moved without articulation 
again ; and again Manton asked — “ What do you see now ?” 

“ I see, I see, the light is parting on either side ; out in the 
far distance, between those walls of light, a giant form uprears 
itself in shadow. Down the long vista stands this darkened 
giant. He is fierce and stern, and wears a cold, hard front, with 
flaming eyes, that scare the ministering angels all away. He 
strikes around him with the imperious sway of his huge, knotted 
club, and all the bright forms flee. He seems the savage Her- 
cules of pride !” 

There is a pause y and after a stillness of some moments, 
Manton asked again — 

“ What now is the vision, to your sense ? — is the giant gone ?” 

“ No, he is humbled but not subdued ; and from afar behind 
him, down this darkened vista, a light has grown up, like a 
rising, star. It advances slowly, rising over his head. The 
splendor increases as it comes. Now, the dark and wrathful 
giant has fallen on his knees — the flood of glory overcomes 
him. His club is dropped. His eyes, upturned in awe, seem 
dimmed by the sudden glory of an angel’s presence. Ha ! I 
see ! the features of that angel are like his whose soul I see ! 
The giant is subdued ! His pride has bowed its forehead in the 
dust, before the angel radiance of a visiting mother!” 

Manton felt bis flesh creep as this was spoken, and as the 
Clairvoyant paused for some moments, he asked : “ What does 
this spirit of the mother say ?” 

The slow answer was — 

“ She seems to rebuke this pride even more wdth her eflful- 
gence, and to say. My son, I am with thee in the spirit, but I 
cannot be with thee through the medium of the flesh which thou 
hast so poisoned and corrupted, since I passed from thee into 
this higher sphere. Make thy body clean and purify thy life. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


127 


and I shall be always with thee present, in the vspirit. It is 
necessary for -your usefulness in your present life that you should 
accept of human sympathies. It is only through such that you 
can establish a true community with the material world of which 
you form a part. Accept human love — accept a moral repre- 
sentative of myself — believe in the possibility of its chasteness 
as well as utility, and you will yet be strong, powerful of good, 
and happy.” 

Here Manton, who had become intensely excited during the 
progress of this scene, removed his hand with a vehement ges- 
ture from the head of the woman, and springing to his feet, 
seized his cap, and with scarce the ordinary adieus, hastily left 
the room. He rushed hurriedly through the dark storm, which 
careered along the street, muttering as he went : — ^ 

“ Eternal curses on this infernal woman ! What can it mean ? 
She dares to speak of my mother again. Hah ! does not this 
account for the inexplicable disturbance of my papers in my 
trunk ? Is it possible that this can be the accursed and despi- 
cable wretch who has stolen into the privacies of my life } But 
think, think ! I may have been hasty. This whole subject of 
Clairvoyance is an impenetrable mystery. That strange story 
of the bloody hand has impressed me. For all we know, as 
yet, such things may be within the possibilities of Clairvoyance. 
That myth she uttered as if she were in a dream, was strangely 
significant to me — supposing her to be ignorant of all my past 
life ; and then she seemed so patient, so disinterested, so gentle 
and so kind, so matronly, so tender, and so heroic, too. I can- 
not altogether distrust her, nor can I believe ; I can only wait. 
I must see more ; I must know more ; I must comprehend 
the whole. There is a something here I cannot understand — a 
something betwixt heaven and hell, which I must bide my time 
to fathom. Curses on all mysteries!-” and, rushing onward 
through the storm, like one hag-ridden, or pursued by stern, 
accusing ghosts, the bewildered Manton soon reached his cheer- 
less room, all storm-drenched and depressed. 


128 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE PROUD MAN BOWED. 

Dim burns the once bright star of Avenel^ 

There is an influence sorrowful and fearful, 

That dogs its downward course. 

Scott. 

Transparent as is the meaning of the foregoing scene, it 
conveyed to Manton, who knew none of these things which 
have been revealed to the reader, a tremendous shock. Mind 
and soul were thrown into chaotic convulsions ; he knew not 
what to think, or which way to turn for truth. 

Had the incident occurred but a short time previous, before 
his nature had begun to be moved by generous sympathy and 
honest respect for this loyal, persecuted, and indomitable w^o- 
man ; had it occurred before that eventful walk through the 
slush of New York, he would have at once turned upon her in 
freezing wrath, with the deliberate accusation of having entered 
his room in his absence, and searched his private papers, or else 
have merely sneered at it, as the accidental hit of a reckless 
adventuress. 

But he had admitted her to his respect as a noble and unpro- 
tected devotee. In a word, he had, as was usual with him 
wherever women were concerned, idealised her into a heroine. 
Could he suspect her after this He rejected the weakness of 
such suspicion almost with terror. 

Had he known any thing of New York life ; had he formed 
any relations except those of a strictly business character ; had 
he cultivated acquaintances at all, who belonged to the city, and 
knew it, a few^ inquiries might have settled all his doubts. But, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 129 

alas ! pride, pride, that fatal pride ! He knew nobody, he cared 
not for what any one said of another. 

He had heard this woman violently abused at the dinner- 
table below, to be sure ; but then the character of the persons 
who had joined in this cowardly vituperation was, to his mind, 
evidently such as to prejudice him in her favor ; for he had a 
proud way with him, which never permitted him to judge of the 
absent by what was said of them, but by who said it. Taking 
these things together, he would have felt ashamed to have asked 
any questions concerning the woman, of those whose opinion 
and opportunities of knowledge he respected. 

If she had thrown herself upon him, it had been with perfect 
frankness, and without any attempt at concealments. She had 
told him how she was persecuted and slandered by ignorant 
women, because she had been bold enough to tell them the truth 
about themselves. He had already heard something of this, and 
the stories told were of precisely such character as envious, vul- 
gar, and malignant gossip circulates about females who make 
themselves conspicuous by their virtues or their talents. Be- 
sides, had he not, before he knew more of her, been violently 
prejudiced, too ? What more natural than that others should be 
so, including these ignorant women ? 

And then this wonderful Clairvoyance ! Who can dare to say 
that he believes nothing of its claims ? He held its marvels and 
miracles in great contempt, and firmly believed, that whatever 
of truth there was would soon be unveiled of its apparent mys- 
tery by the close analysis of science, and shown to proceed from 
purely natural laws, the exact relations of which had not been 
heretofore understood. 

And then it might have been accident. Ah ! and then it 
might have been — what his thought had long struggled with, as 
the solution of all such phenomena — it might have been sympa- 
thetic ! a mere result of the unconscious projection of his 
stronger vitality through a magnetic or odic medium of sympa- 
thy, which had been instantly established through the contact 


130 


SPIEITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


of his hand with the thin and sensitive region on the top of her 
head. 

She might thus have been made to feel him intellectually, if 
not spiritually; to see, through this sympathetic sense, those 
images with which his brain w^as most full, and thus express 
this startling outline of his life. 

'Be those things as they may, he was r*estless and excited ; his 
imagination was aroused, his memory profoundly stirred. He 
was thus fast hurried past the point where a cool analysis could 
well avail to rescue him. Tossed fb and fro by doubts and 
dark suspicions, which a generous confidence strove hard to 
banish with its magnanimous suggestions, backed by self-reliant 
pride ; confounded with the fear of acting with injustice towards 
a helpless female ; with the fear, too, of the soft pluckings at his 
heart, from those tender memories which she had thus aroused by 
her offers of maternal sympathy — together with the penetrating 
light and warmth of that genial and unlucky evening spent with 
her, amidst the quiet of domestic surroundings — he could form no 
conclusions, discriminate no clearly definite purpose — could 
only wander to and fro, restless, in troubled, sad irresolution. 

A vague dread of evil in advance afforded apprehension of 
he knew not what, that always, when the gloaming darkened 
most, seemed parted to a tremulous, dim light, like summer 
coming through the morn, and made his pulse go quicker, while 
those yearning memories faintly glimmered, as if within a shaded 
reflex of the glowing day. 

He kept himself strictly secluded ; yet, day by day, those 
dainty missives crept in upon him by some mysterious agency. 
At first they were read mechanically, and, amidst his troubled 
doubts, produced no apparent effect ; but, by and by, they grew 
more chaste, more delicately worded, and more sweetly toned. 

Was it that they were really advanced upon the blundering 
specimens we have seen ? or could it be that his fancy had be- 
come excited with regard to them — that he was merely idealising 
unconsciously ? or was it that those awkward first attempts at 


ETHEEIAL SOFTDOWN. 


131 


producing imitations of the rhapsodical style peculiar to himself, 
which had so excited his contempt, as obviously taken from the 
study of his writings, had now been cunningly improved upon, 
since personal intercourse had afforded his correspondent a 
closer insight of his purer and more simple forms of expres- 
sion ? 

Had his haughty egotism been touched at last, by a skilful 
reflex of himself, thrown shrewdly into his eyes, from the daz- 
zling surface of this snowy crow-quilled page ? 

We shall see, perhaps. Here is the last that he received 
from her : — 

“My poor Friend — My heart yearns over you ; I am op- 
pressed with your suffering, for I feel how you suffer yet — how 
you are struggling, by day and by night, with those twin fiends 
of Doubt and Pride. I know my letters soothe you, though 
they cannot heal. Had you not informed me so, in your note, 
I should yet have been conscious of it. Had you never written 
to me again, I should yet have known that the great deep of 
your soul had been stirred at last, and that, though pride had 
triumphed in the struggle, love, genial, human love, had yet 
found, beneath the dark shadow of his wing, a warm resting- 
place once more beside thy heart. 

No human aid can save thee now — that stiff neck must be 
bowed — you must be humbled ! Then will come the full influx 
of the light from heaven. Then you will know joy and peace 
again — the pure raptures of a holy rest will calm this dark, be- 
wildering struggle. I pray for you without ceasing — weary the 
throne with supplication that you may be humbled ! Your little 
sister sends you her tearful greetings — she weeps for you with 
me always — for she dearly loves her tiger-brother. She says 
that, like all terrible creatures, he is so beautiful — oh, that he 
were only good! Marie.” 

This letter strangely thrilled upon the already over-wrought 
sensibilities of Manton, whose nervous organisation had been 


132 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


rendered intensely susceptible by the protracted excitement 
under which he had been laboring. He read it over and over 
again, with increasing agitation, until it seemed, while his eyes 
suffused, as if the accusing angel of his own conscience spoke 
to him in mild rebuke. 

Long he moaned and tossed — the dim moisture struggling 
all the while to brim over those parched lids, that for years before 
had never known a freshening. Those tearless lids — how rigid 
they had been ! how bleak ! Like some oasis fountain w^here 
the hot simoon had drank ! — Dry ! dry ! 

Suddenly, with a deep groan, the young man bowed his head 
upon his hands, while the tears gushed between his fingers in a 
flood, that seemed the more violent from its long restraint. His 
body shook and rocked, while he gasped aloud — 

“ It is true ! It is true ! This woman tells what is true ! This 
sullen pride has been the cause of all — I feel its crushing judg- 
ment on my shoulders now ! Great God ! deliver us from this 
thraldom ! Let me but know my race once more ! let me but 
weep when others weep, and smile when others smile, and it 
will be to me for a sign that thou hast received the outcast into 
the family of thy love, once more! Forgive, oh, forgive me, 
that have so long held thy goodly gifts of earthly consolation in 
despite ! The worm’s presumptuous arrogance has but moved 
thy pity, oh, thou Infinite One I Forgive ! forgive ! oh, let me 
feel that countenance reconciled once more ! Give back to my 
weary soul the holy communion of thy creatures I Pity ! Pity ! 
Pity ! Ah, there is a paradise somewhere on the earth, for the 
most wayworn of her darkened children — a rift in the sunless sky, 
a glittering point above the darkened waters ! Men are not all 
and totally accursed by their defiant passions. Pity sends star- 
beams through the port-holes of the dungeon. Mercy comes 
down on. holy light of visions, where stars cannot get in. Oh, 
love. Infinite Love ! Thou art so powerful of penetration • - 
come to me now 1” 

For a long time he sat thus, while his frame shivered in 
voiceless throes ; when suddenly straightening himself, with a 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 133 

powerful effort, and while the tears yet rained like an April 
shower, he drew towards him his paper, and wrote — 

Woman — I know not what to call you — you have strangely 
moved me ! In my most desperate and sullen pride have I not 
struggled loiig with this great blessing, which thou hast brought 
me ! I would have driven the good angel from me in wrath 
and scorn — but it would not be offended. In patience and long 
suffering it has abided near, hovering on white wings, until now, 
at last, the fountain has been troubled. Ah ! woman, its depths 
have been broken up, indeed — and the dark, long, unnatural 
winter of my life, has felt the glowing breath of spring ; and in 
one mighty crash, the hideous ice- crusts that had gathered, 
heaping over it, have burst away before the flashing leap of un- 
chained waters. Once more my soul is free — once more I 
smile back love for love into the sunlight, and weep for joy — 
that God is good. Once more I feel as if the earth were a holy 
earth, and its flowers, too, might grow for me. Thou hast con- 
quered ! Thou hast conquered, woman ! Thy pure and chas- 
tened sympathies, thy gentle and unwearied pleadings, thy meek 
compassion for the harsh and wayward boy, have conquered. 
The stiff neck is bowed even now before God, and thee, his 
minister of good. Ah! forgive and pity me! My eyes are 
raining so, I can scarcely see to write. I am shaken as in a 
great tempest, body and soul. I could weep at your feet in 
penitence, and pray to be forgiven and for pity ! Ah, that, I 
know you have ! I am blinded with these tears — I know not 
what I say ! Oh, be to me what I have lost ! I faint by the 
wayside ; my soul dies within me for that holy rest that I have 
lost— -for the sweet, calm and tender peace, all the holy memories 
your loving gentleness has thus recalled. Ah, be to me all 
that you have thus filled me with, anew ! Receive me as your 
adopted child, that I may rest my throbbing head once more in 
peace and joy, upon a sacred bosom. Be to me, forever, 
‘‘Marie, mother!” Manton. 

12 


134 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XV. j 

DELECTABLE GLIMPSES BEHIND THE CURTAIN. 

Now, with a hitter smile, whose light did shine •• 

Like a fiend’s hope upon her lips and eyne. 

Shelley 

Turn we now to that large and mysterious house, to which 
we have"' before referred, near the corner of Broadway and 
Eighth Street. We will pass the greasy lintels, into the wide and 
dirty entry, climb those five flights of stairs, turn down the long, 
dark passaa^e, and pause before a door, just one beyond that 
which we have had occasion to remember in the course of this 
narrative. 

We will take the liberty to enter. The scene presents the 
woman, Marie, reclining on a lounge, holding a note in her 
hand, which ,she seems to have read and re-read with a peculiar 
look of puzzled inquiry. 

The impish-looking daughter, to whom we have before re- 
ferred, was seated in a chair, behind the woman’s head, and out 
of her sight. The creature seemed to have much ado to keep 
from laughing outright, for her face was screwed into all sorts 
of contortions in the effort to subdue it, as she peeped over her 
mother’s shoulder, and watched her puzzled looks and be- 
wildered gestures. 

“ Well!” said the mother, as if speaking to herself, “ if one 

could only comprehend how he came to write this to me it 

seems to contain a great deal. Upon my word, it appears a 

beautiful snatch of rhyme, and to convey quite a confession 

only I don’t understand — it reads as if it were an answer to 
something that had gone before.” She reads — 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


135 


Angels a subtler name may know, 

But not a subtler thought of joy 
Could thrilling through a seraph goi 
Than that your presence brought to cloy, 

And weigh my life down into calm, 

With an unutterable sense — 

X Like music perfumM with the balm 
0£ dews star-shed — all too intense ! 

MosWoo high-strung for my purposes, it must be confessed ! 
He never expresses any flesh and blood in his correspondence. 
Ah, well, I ’ll soon bring him out of that I But this really does 
puzzle me! This is all the note contains.” She turns the note 
to examine it. “ It is certainly in his hand, yet he makes no 
explanation.” 

Here the child, whose bipod seemed ready to burst through 
her face in the continued effort to restrain her laughter, tittered 
aloud. The mother sprang erect, and, turning upon her with 
an expression of rage and surprise upon her face — 

‘‘ What ! Why, what are you laughing about? What busi- 
ness is this of yours, pray?” 

The child, although evidently a little frightened, had so en- 
tirely lost her self-control as' to be unable to restrain the bursts 
of laughter which now followed each other, peal upon peal, as 
she danced about the room in a perfect ecstacy of glee. 

The mother’s face turned first pale and then red, as she fol- 
lowed the motions of the child with her eye, until at last, with 
the expression of an infuriate tigress, she sprang to seize her. 
The child was too quick for her, and with the agility of a mon- 
key, darted from beneath her grasp ; and. still shrieking with 
laughter, was pursued around the room — leaping the furniture 
with an airiness that defied pursuit — which her strange, wild 
laugh yet taunted. 

The woman, after exhausting herself in vain attempts at catch- 
ing her, sank upon the lounge — and at once, in a whining, fret- 
ful voice, commenced to pour upon the head of the child, the 


136 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


most inconceivable and galling epithets. So long as this tone 
was held, the child held out in defiant spirit, either of sulking 
obstinacy, or of harsh and irritating laughter, and to every reit- 
erated question from the angry mother — What are you laugh- 
ing at? What do you miean ?” — she only clapped her hands 
and danced more wildly to her elfin mirth. 

The mother now changed her tone of a sudden, in seeming 
hopelessness of carrying her point by storm. She began to sob 
violently, and turning with streamirig eyes towards tlfe child — 

“ You — you tre-treat your poor mother very cruelly to-day ; 
I am dying to* know what it is you mean ; but you will not tell 
me ! Please, dear, come and tell poor mother why you laugh, 
what it is you mean, and what you know about this letter? — 
for I am sure you know something — do tell poor mother, and 
she will forgive you all ! Come, dear child !” and she reached 
out her hand as if to clasp her to her bosom. 

The child, who seemed to have no intellectual comprehension 
of the meaning of all this, but to have taken a purely impish 
delight in watching the confusion and puzzle of her mother, in 
regard to the letter at first, and then instantly, when she flew 
into a rage, to have answered in a monkeyish and hysterical 
rage, on her own part ; now at once, with equal promptness, and 
with the common instinct of young animals, responded to the 
tender inflections of* the material voice. 

Dropping her whole previous manner, she instantly sprang 
forward and knelt at her mother’s side. The mother did not 
speak for some moments, but silently caressed her, placing her 
hand frequently on her head, the top of which she fondly stroked 
with a tenderness that seemed to linger there. She drew the 
child’s face to hers too ; and although she seemed to kiss it fre- 
quently, it might have been observed that she breathed deep 
and heavy exhalations upon different portions of it, which she 
only touched with her lips. 

The effect was magical beyond any power of expression. 
The hard, ugly, animal lines of that child’s face, which had 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


137 


been writhed and curled but a few moments before, in every 
conceivable expression of most ignoble passions, at once sub- 
sided into the meek and suppliant confiding of that inexpli- 
cable and most tender of all the relations known to the animal 
world, mother and child ! 

“Dear, why did you not tell me what you knew about this 
letter before ?” said the mother, in a tone as musically reproach- 
ful' as if she dallied with her suckling babe. The child. buried 
her head in her mother’s bosom, and after a silence of some 
time, during which her mother industriously stroked the top of 
her head, she looked up, and in a sly, bashful tone exclaimed — 

“ I did it just for fun, to try how writing love-letters went — 
I copied the verses from a book, in your hand, and sent them 
to him as yours !” 

Scarcely were these words uttered, than the languishing and 
tender-seeming mother hurled the child from her, backwards, 
upon the floor, with a violence that left her stunned and 
prostrate, and springing to her feet, raged round and round the 
room, as only a feminine demon infuriate could be imagined to 
do, spurning now and then with her foot, as she passed, the 
still senseless form of her own child! 

Hell might find an equal to this whole scene, but hell has 
always been too civil! It is enough! This is jealousy ! That 
woman is jealous of her own child ! and she only thirteen years 
old! 

How long she might have raged and raved, and to what con- 
sequences it might have led, heaven can only judge. Provi- 
dentially-, perhaps, a knock at her door announced the postman. 
She clutched the letter she received convulsively, and tearing it 
open, the instant he closed the door, read — what.?* The letter 
of Manton, which we saw in the last chapter! 

She read it through, standing where she had received it — her 
eyes dilating, and her whole form changing. She literally 
screamed with joy as she finished the letter, and clapped her 
hands like one bewildered with a sudden triumph. 

12 ^ 


138 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


“Ah, ha! I hav^ him! I have him! He is mine hence- 
forth ! He cannot escape me now !” and her oblique eyes fell 
upon the motionless child upon the floor. “ The little fool ! — 
she catches my arts too soon — she is not hurt— but I must help 
her.” She moved towards the cliild, but the demoniac triumph 
which possessed her seemed irrepressible. She bounded sud- 
denly into the air, and almost shrieking aloud as she did so — 

“I have conquered — I have conquered him at last!” came 
down like a statuesque Apollyon transfixed in exultation. It 
was a horrible glimpse of unnatural triumph ! It lasted but for 
a moment; for, with a sudden drooping of the usually stooped 
shoulders, as she turned towards the letter again, she said, 
thoughtfully, 

“ This will not do — he perseveres even here in talking about 
mother! mother! and chaste! and holy! and all that sort of 
thing. The foolish boy is too much in earnest. I have used 
this stuff about long enough. I must find the means of bring- 
ing him gradually around. Such a relation as the silly fellow 
desires wont do between us — we are both too full of life ! Oh, 
I’ll write him a note at once that will prepare the way — will 
break up the ice, as he calls it, still more about his life !” 

She raised the child, which had been stunned by the fall, and 
sprinkling some water upon her face, which caused the first long 
breathing of recovery, she laid her upon the lounge, muttering, 
as she did so, “The meddlesome little fool! She must do 
everything she sees me do ! She must imagine herself in love 
with every one w^hom she sees me pretend to love. She must 
write love-letters when she sees me write them, and heaven only 
knows what she wont do next with her monkeyish imitation ! 
But I can’t be crossed by a child so, if she is my own. Lie 
there until you get over the sulks — you are not much hurt!” 

She .turned away from the child and seated herself at the 
table, exclaiming, as she seized her pen, “Ah! this letter! I 
feel that I shall need all my skill and wit to word this properly, 
so as not to alarm him. In his present excited and hysterical 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


139 


mood, the veriest trifle would have the effect of driving him off, 
at a tangent, forever beyond my reach. And yet it will not do 
to let things go on in this way; for I see that that idea of the 
motherly relation, if once permitted to become settled in his 
mind now, will remain a fixed barrier, which I shall never be 
able to pass on earth. I must see him to-night, and take ad- 
vantage of his present over-wrought, ecstatic, and bewildered 
condition, to break down this boyish dream of his ! Bah ! to 
think that he should have taken me to be so much in earnest in all 
that first twattle about motherly relations, which I found neces- 
sary to use in order to get at him at all ! Pity my correspond- 
ence hasn’t warmed him up a little by this time ! I’ve tried 
hard enough, to be sure, but the queer fellow will persist in 
etherealising everything !” 

During this soliloquy, the child, who had entirely recovered, 
lay perfectly still, with sharpened attention, catching every 
word that was spoken. There was art eagerness in her eye 
which showed her to be, if not an apt scholar of such teachings, 
at least a very attentive one. The woman wrote : — 

‘•‘Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name! 
thy kingdom come, thy will be done oil earth as it is in 
Heaven !’ My soul is deeply moved for thee in this thy time 
of trial. The good God chasteneth thee now — now is the hour 
of thy great tribulation come; now thy life-demons wrestle 
in thee, with the love, the good the Father has sent to 
redeem thee. Be strong! Ah, be strong even now, thou 
child of many sorrows, and thou shalt yet find grace and peace 
in acceptance with Him. Meanwhile I can but pray for thee 
and with thee. I weary Heaven with supplications, that out of 
this travail a great and glorious soul may be born in the humility 
of love, for light, eternal light. 

“ Come to me this evening, that I may take that throbbing 
heart upon my bosom. I may soothe and calm you, but Fcannot 
give you rest — rest comes only from the Father! You ask me 


140 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


to be for you, forever, ‘Marie, mother!’ I can be to you, 
forever, your friend Marie.” 

“Ah ! ha I that will do it !” she said in a low chuckling tone, 
as she rapidly folded and directed the letter; “though he might 
take the alarm at this if he were cool, yet there’s no danger 
now I It^will no doubt shock him a little, but he has learned to 
believe in me, and in his present excited state he has deified me 
almost into an object of worship ; and any suspicion he might 
feel he would only blame himself for. Ah ! this will do ! it 
shall go instantly! Here!” she said, turning sharply to the 
child, “Here! get up there, put on your bonnet, and take this 
letter ! You know how to deliver it, and where ! Come, up 
with you !” 

“But, mother,” said the child, as she slowly lifted herself 
half-erect, “ I don’t feel like it — I’m not well ! You hurt me !” 

“ Nonsense !” said the mother, harshly ; “ go take a bath, and 
do it quickly too ! You’ll feel well enough ! This letter must 
go, and shall go ! Get along, I say, and do what I tell you !” 

The child dragged herself slowly out of the room. 

“ That little wretch will torment me to death!” 

The letter was despatched and reached its destination. 

Manton, whose excitement had continued, without the 
slightest diminution, to return upon him, in paroxysm after 
paroxysm, seized upon this last letter with the famishing eager- 
ness of a man who looks for strength — for spiritual consoling. 
He read it with suffused and swollen eyes ; he scarcely saw 
what he read, so much had his vision been dizzied and obscured 
by weeping. Buf those last words did indeed shock and thrill 
him. He was strangely startled, and for a moment they seemed 
to open to him an appalling and terrific gulf of falsehood, more 
hideous than yawning hell. 

We say, it was but for a moment ; but in that little space the 
blackness of darkness overcame his soul. A shuddering of 
dread, of doubt, of fear, and all that horrid brood, the birth of 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


141 


rayless and unutterable gloom, passed over him convulsively, and 
then the whole was gone. • He had been too intensely wrought 
upon by the ecstacies of Faith. He shook off, by one great 
throe, the giant shadow of its natural enemy, this Doubt, which 
he now xionceived had so long made his life accursed ; and the 
rebound, by a necessary law, carried him to a yet greater and 
more unreasoning extreme of trust, and . unquestioning confi- 
dence in this woman, as under God the instrument and medium 
for restoring him once more to life and the world. 

He at once determined to visit her, and prove to his own soul 
the falsehood of these dark suspicions of the being who had 
thus moved and spoken his inmost life for good. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

* 

REMORSE. 

The evening was closing in when Manton made his way 
through a heavy, drifting snow-storm, to the number ‘of the new 
address, near the corner of Broadway and Eighth Street, which 
had appeared upon the last notes of his correspondent. He was 
only made aware, thereby, that she had changed her residence 
from the rooms where he had visited her in Bond Street, and had 
thought no more about the matter ; for it would have somewhat 
damped his enthusiasm, or rather have made him furiously in- 
dignant, to have been told that the woman he was visiting, with 
such sublimated sentiment, usually found means to adapt her 
rooms to the purpose and business in hand. 

He was too much excited and pre-occupied to notice the sig- 
nificant appearance of the entry, further than to feel its. dreari- 
ness, as he rang the bell and waited an unreasonable time for 
admission. The door was wide enough open to be sure, but he 
was not suflSciently initiated into the mystery of such places to 


142 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


understand the meaning of this exactly,, even if it had been 
possible for it to have excited his attention, in the then absorbed 
and abstracted condition of his whole faculties. 

A uegro servant at length made his appearance, and approach- 
ing, him closely, answ^ed his inquiries in a tone so insolently 
confidential that under other circumstances he would surely have 
been in danger of a flooring at the hands of Manton, who, how- 
ever, only passed on up the stairs with a feeling of annoyance, the 
cause of which he made no attempt at apprehending. He as- 
cended three steps at a bound, and in a moment tapped lightly 
at the door. ^ ' 

K soft voice, ‘‘Come!” was the response. The door flew’ 
open: 

“Yes.! yes! I come! Ah, Marie, mother, it must be so!” 
And dropping his cloak and hat upon the- floor, he sprang for- 
ward to the woman, who, with her pale face beaming with un- 
natural light, was seated upon a lounge, where she seemed to 
have been awaiting him. 

“My poor friend!” and she stretched forth her arms towwds 
him. He laid his head upon her bosom, while his whole frame 
shivered violently, and he sobbed forth — 

“ Ah, blessed mother, let me rest here ! My brain is bursting ! 
I am become as a little child again ! Ah, I am so weak ! A 
wisp of straw would bind me ! My own vaunted strength is 
gone— all gone ! I have no pride, no scorn, no defiance now ! 
My lips are in the dust! Ah, I am humble, humble, humble, 
now ! Do thou, incarnation of that angel mother who has passed 
from earth, adopt me for thine own ! Thine own, poor, lost, 
bewildered, panting child!” 

“ My poor friend, be calm !” and she caressed his wet cheek 
lightly with her fingers. “ Only be calm, and God will give 
you strength to pass through this valley and shadow of trial.” 

“ God gave me strength!” said he, with a sharp and sudden 
change of tone, raising his head slightly to look in her face. 
“ Woman, he gave me strength when he gave me life ! I have 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


143 


strength enough, as men call it, to move the world, aye, to wield 
Fate itself. It was not for such strength I came to you. It 
was not for such strength I would condescend to plead to mortal. 
It is for that soft and beautiful presence that liveth in immortal 
freshness, the spring-flower of the heart, beneath the moveless 
outstretched wing of Faith. Faith in our own kind. Faith in 
what is true and chaste in the purposes and charities, which, 
widely separate from the sensuous and the passionate,' constitute 
all the blest amenities of intercourse between the sexes. ’Tis 
not that I would ask you to be all my mother, for that could not 
be ; but that you should impersonate to me that calm joy, that 
serenity of repose in which I lived .so long, upon a troubled 
earth, through her. It was she to whom I turned when the 
world bufleted and baffled me, to renew upon her bosom my 
faith in my fellows, and it was upon that sacred resting-place 
that I alone found soothing. She reconciled me to endure. 
She subdued my rebellious heart. She saved me from actual 
madness; aye, from the strait-waistcoat and the chain, when 
my brain was like to burst from throbbings that sounded like a 
thousand wild steeds thundering frantic over echoing plains ; for 
the conflict was most fearful, when my young soul first arose to 
grapple with the world and its huge evils. In my impotent 
wrath I should have dashed myself to atoms against its moveless 
battlements of wrong, but that a low, sweet voice would quell 
and hold me back. 

“I was the child of mucji travail, and years of weary and 
desponding w’atchfulness. I alone, of all her children, bore her 
features — she loved me unutterably, an^ shielded me always; 
it was not like the common love of mother for her child. In 
all things concerning me she seemed to be filled with a strange 
prescience — she read my inmost thought as if it were her own 
— as if it were a scroll made legible by illuminated letters. She 
seldom asked me questions, but simply told me what had hap- 
pened. It was useless to attempt disguises with her ; minister- 
ing in the flesh, she was my present angel, reconciling me to 


144 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


life ; and when she passed from me and the world, I first real- 
ised what darkness, death, and separation meant. 

I was delirious I know not how.long — for they seemed slowly 
tearing my heart out by the foots, chord by chord, with a heavy 
drag, until the last one snapped, and then I went into deep 
oblivion, from which I awoke a man of stone, so far as sensa- 
tion went ; and if stone could w'alk, with no more heart than it — 
or rather if you can imagine this walking statue moulded of the 
red lava, and only cooled upon the surface, you can better con- 
ceive the smouldering, heart- devouring chaos in which my life 
now moved among my fellows. I did not stop to curse and 
battle with my old foes, I only hated them with a liquid flame 
of scorn that found its level in me and was still. I would not 
harm them — no, not I — I wanted them to live for companion- 
ship in suffering. I gloried in their perversions — they filled me 
with ecstasy. I could not but add to them, and in ferocious 
delight threw myself into all the excesses and extremes that de- 
monise the world. 

‘‘But ambition came to rescue my dignity at last, and of its 
iron despotism you have seen the worst. From its hard and 
meagre thraldom you have released me for the time, but it re- 
mains with you to hold me free. The wings that have borne 
me thus far on this bold upward flight must feel the soft freshen- 
ing of the breeze, and the glad welcoming of sunlight, to the 
purer realm they try, or flagging soon of the unwonted eflfort, 
they will sink again to seek the old accustomed sullen perch. 
The strength I need now is a subtler thing than any power of 
will within myself — purer than the breath of angels, it is chaste 
and mild as star-beams. 

“ It is you w^ho have filled me with these yearnings — ’tis to 
you that I look for their realisation, and yet you have not ac- 
cepted that pure and holy relation conveyed in the ‘Marie, 
mother,’ I have named you, and plead with you to recognise.” 

During all this time the face of the woman had been bowed 
so close to that of Manton that she seemed almost to touch with 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


145 

her lips, first his temples and then his cheek. A close observer 
would have perceived, in her long and deep inspirations, her 
slightly parted lips and the slow creeping movement of the head, 
that she was steadily breaithing upon certain well-known and 
highly sensitive nerves. The brain of Manton was too full to 
notice this strange manoeuvre; but while he talked, that hot 
breath had been sending soft thrillings through his frame, which, 
at first unobserved, had gradually grown more palpably deli- 
cious, until, as he ceased to speak, he found his whole frame 
literally quivering with passion. 

He was silent for a moment, that he might fully realise the 
sensation, and then, with a shudder of horror, sprang away 
from contact with the woman, exclaiming — 

“ My God ! what is this ? What an unnatural monster am 
I ! or” — as a sudden gleam of suspicion shot through his brain 
— “ Woman, is it you who have done this ?” His face darkened 
in an expression of rage and' ferocity which was absolutely 
hideous, as his eye glanced coldly on her. 

“I ask you, woman, was it some infernal art of yours 
Answer me ! — for, by the Eternal God, you shall never thus 
tamper with the sacrednesses of a true man’s heart again !” 
and, grinding his teeth, he approached her menacingly, as if, in 
his blind rage, he would rend her to atoms. 

The woman had taken but one glimpse of the terrible face 
before her, and then shrunk bowed and crouching into the 
corner of the lounge. Her neck and forehead flushed crimson, 
spasmodic retchings of the throat commenced, and when Manton 
stretched forth his hands, as if to clutch her, there was a deep 
suffocating cough, and the red, warm blood gushed in an ap- 
palling current from her mouth, bedabbling his fingers and her 
clothing. 

The man was startled from his rage into immeasurable terror, 
as he shrank back with upraised hands — 

“My God! I have killed — I have killed her by my brutal 
violence! I am accursed! I am accursed for ever! I have 
13 


146 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


slain the white dove of peace they sent to me from Heaven !” 
Snatching a towel^ he was on his knees by her side in an in- 
stant; and placing it within her bloody hands, W'hich w^re 
clutched upon her mouth, as if to stay the fatal tide, he burst 
into an agony of tears, praying in frantic accents to be forgiven ; 
for he could see nothing but immediate death in a hemorrhage 
so violent as this seemed, and he remembered now, but too 
vividly, how often she had told him of her melancholy predis- 
position to such attacks from the lungs, by which she W'as kept 
constantly in expectation of being carried off. 

Ah, with what fierce remorse, what agonised penitence, all 
these things came up to him now, as gush after gush of crimson 
saturated the towel ! In answer to his prayers for forgiveness, 
she at last reached one cold, bloody hand to his, pressing it 
gently. _ 

And now his self-possession w^as immediately restored. His 
only thought, at first, had been forgiveness before she died ; 
now he thought alone how to save her. Strange, he did not once 
think of giving the alarm, and sending for medical aid ; for he 
instantly felt the case w’as one beyond the reach of ordinary 
remedies, and one in w^hich the most perfect restoration of both 
the moral and physical natures to absolute repose could alone 
avail. 

He reached another towel from the toilet-table, on which he 
found, by the way, abundant supply, w^hich, innocently enough, 
seemed to him remarkably apropos ; then, seating himself by 
her side, he endeavored, by the use of all tender epithets which 
could be applied, to soothe and calm her. She suddenly seized 
his right hand and placed it upon the top of her head, and from 
that moment he thought he could faintly perceive an increase 
of his control over the more violent symptoms of the case. 

More than half an hour of harrowing suspense had passed, 
before the paroxysm of bleeding had so far subsided as to enable 
him to breathe more freely ; but even when the bleeding had at 
length entirely ceased, a long period of coma, or death-like sleep, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


147 


induced by exhaustion, and suspended sensation, supervened, 
during which he continued to watch her with the most painful 
anxiety, still holding his right hand upon her head, while, with 
the other, he clasped the fingers of her left hand as she had 
requested. As she immediately showed signs of restlessness on 
his attempting to remove either hand, he felt himself compelled 
to sit thus, without change of position, for several hours, awaiting 
whatever might occur. 

And, finally, after a slight stirring of the limbs, she suddenly 
opened her eyes upon his, and smiled with a clear, sweet smile, 
rather of pity and affection than of forgiveness or reproach. He 
felt his heart bound within him, and he could only utter, in a 
low tone, “ The good God be blessed ! I have not killed you ! 
Oh, I will never be ugly and cruel again ! I will be your good 
boy now, always!’’ 

“Yes, yes,” she said in a clear, firm voice, “you were very 
naughty ; but I am strong again now. You will never speak 
harshly to me again, will you ? Lean here, my beautiful tiger ; 
let me feel that fierce cheek upon my bosom once more. You 
have suffered, too ; I must soothe you.” 

Manton, who, by this time, had become thoroughly exhausted, 
bowed his head lightly towards her, in bbedience ; but he leaned 
it rather upon the cushion than her person. 

It was now near twelve o’clock, and the man was lite- 
rally worn out by the long and violent excitements which we 
have traced. Body, soul, and sense, utterly collapsed, the mo- 
ment his head found a resting-place, into a deep sleep. 

The lamp burnt low ; there was not another sound to disturb 
the dimmed silence of that room, but the heavy breathings of 
Manton. But even that murky light was sufficient to disclose 
the figure of the woman stooping, as before, close to the face 
of tlie sleeper. Slowly her lips crept over, without touching 
it, lingering here and there, while her chest heaved with deep 
inspirations. You could not see, had you been a looker-on, 
the slight parting of the lips, nor could you have felt the heated 


148 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


furnace of her breath play along the helpless surface of those 
prostrate nerves ; but you might, have seen an eager, oblique 
glitter in her eye, that grew the stronger while ^the darkness 
thickened, as ghouls look sharper out of graves they have un- 
covered. But then, had you been patient, you would have 
seen, as the hours went by, a gradual twitching of the nerves 
possess that deathlike frame — a restless motion, a moan, an all- 
unconscious smile of ecstatic delight ; and then, if your sense 
was not frightened and appalled by the fierce, swift blaze from 
those still eyes above, a fiend’s triumph would be all familiar to 
you. 

Alas ! alas ! will that young man wake sane ? The owner of 
those glittering eyes seems to know ; for hark ! in her exceed- 
ing joy she whispers aloud, He is mine now ! See how his 
nerves vibrate. I was right in choosing this time of great pros- 
tration. I am scudding along those nerves like a sea-bird on 
currents of the sea ; all that is animal in him is mine now. He 
is mine at last — the insolent tyro ! I shall drag him down from 
his vaulting self-esteem ; I. shall humble him ; I shall degrade 
him. Ah, ha ! I shall feed upon him !” 

There may be retribution on earth or in heaven. We will let 
that dark night’s history rest ! 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


149 


CHAPTER XVII. 

“ TO-MORROW.” 

It would be well for sinners were there no to-morrow. At 
least it would be well for them so far as impunity in the enjoy- 
ment of sin was concerned.- But it may not be ; the inevitable 
time of reaction must follow that of excess, the wages of which 
are remorse. 

The effect of that to-morrow upon poor Manton was fearfully 
crushing. At first he dared not think — the horrid realisation 
would have slain him. He dared not look up, lest he should 
see the great height from which he had fallen. He dared not 
hear the voices within him, or above him, lest they should blast 
his sense. He shrank from the sunlight, as though each ray 
were a fiery arrow, to cleave hissing through his brain. He 
dared not look his fellow-man in the face, lest he should see the 
mark upon his brow, call him accursed, and spit upon him. 
The innocent eye of childhood was the most dreaded basilisk 
to him ; and the face of a pure woman made him shrink and 
shudder in affrighted awe. His shadow seemed a spectral 
mockery to him, for it no longer glided with him, straight and 
firm, but was bowed, and crept sneaking after. 

The burden of a hundred years had fallen upon the young 
man’s shoulders in one fatal night — a ghastly, loathsome burthen 
of self-contempt — his face had grown old; his eyes lost their 
proud fire ; his lips, their firm expression ; there was no longer 
any “aspiration in his heel.” The haughty, bounding self- 
reliance, the unflinching, upward look, were gone ! gone ! Man- 
ton 4iad lost his self-respect. 

Ah, fearful, fearful loss, that it is ! There was a leaden des- 
peration in the man’s whole air that was shocking, even to those 
who had never seen him before. There was no bravado in it — 
13 ^ 


150 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


it was sultry, slow and self-consuming — shrank from observa- 
tion, and burned inward. 

He neither sought nor found any palliation for himself. He 
blamed no one else ; his pride would not permit him to confess 
to himself that he had been unduly influenced, or that any un- 
fair advantage had or could have been taken of him. No, it 
was his own fall. His own grossness had profaned those asso- 
ciations which he had stupidly deluded himself, for years, into 
supposing to be really sacred things in his life. He had ren- 
dered himself, thereby, unfit for Heaven, unworthy Earth, too 
base for even Hell. 

His first sullen recourse was to the wine-cup, that he might 
numb the unendurable agonies. He drank to monstrous excess ; 
but, no, it would not do ; that cold burning, as of an iccrbolt 
through his heart and brain, lay there still, in the two centres. 
He sought and found men like himself, with great thoughts 
and stricken hearts ; like himself, brain- workers ; and in the 
fiercest orgies of desperation, hours and hours were spent with- 
out attaining to one moment of the coveted oblivion. 

The evening had long set in among such scenes, when a note 
was suddenly thrust into his hand from behind, and as he turned 
his head, he saw a boy hastily making his way through the 
thronged room. This movement had not been observed by 
his noisy companions — he hastily concealed the note. 

He had recognised the superscription with a feeling of deathly 
sickness, for which he could not clearly account. It was as if 
the fresh wounds were all to be torn open again. 

He soon after found an opportunity to withdraw beyond 
observation, and opened the note, which contained only these 
words : — 

My Friend :-^ why have you lefl me all day? come to me— I 
am dying. Marie. 

The sheet was bespattered with blood. Manton nearly 
fainted. Recovering himself in a moment, he muttered, “ In- 


ETHERIAL SOETDOVVN. 


151 


fernal brute that I am ! to have neglected the poor, frail creature 
thus — after last night, too ! May God forgive me, for I shall 
never forgive myself!” He hurried from the room. 

The scene, on reaching her apartment, was, as may by this 
time be expected, ghastly enough. But as we have seen a 
little more of these horrid bleeding scenes than Manton has, we 
will refrain from another description of one, since we have 
found that they only differed in the intensity of effect and de- 
gree in the precise ratio of the results to be attained. In this 
instance she had not reckoned without her host. 

Manton, who never dreamed of suspecting her, and had been 
fully impressed with the belief that these attacks were fearfully 
dangerous, and that the magnetism of his touch, whether ima- 
ginary or otherwise, could alone suffice to restore her 'to the 
calmness necessary for the arrest of the hemorrhage, felt as if an 
awful responsibility had been suddenly devolved upon him, as 
he thus apparently held the very life of this singular woman in 
his own hands. 

This impression had been consummately fixed upon the mind 
of Manton by her obstinate refusal to permit the presence, at their 
interviews, of any third person, not even that of her own child. 
She could thus, through his generous humanity, most effectually 
draw him to her side ; and, when once in her reach, he was 
again in the power of those fearful arts, of which we have seen 
something. 

The life of Manton became now a succession of the ‘‘ to- 
morrows” of remorse. Each new sun arose upon its succeed- 
ing scene of wilful, self- degrading excess, such as we have wit- 
nessed. He never permitted himself to grow fully sober, but 
drank incessantly — morning, noon and night. But that the 
wines he chose were comparatively light, and less rapidly fatal 
than the heavier and more dangerous drinks of our country, he 
must have, undoubtedly, destroyed his life, as he did his busi- 
ness reputation. 


152 


SPIKITUAL VAMPIKISM. 


He still wrote brilliantly — nay, even with a fierce and poetic 
dazzle of style that surprised men greatly, and added much to 
the notoriety, if not to the solidity of his reputation. But every- 
thing wTnt wrong with him. His purse was regularly drained 
by a remorseless hand ; his wardrobe fell into neglect, and the 
marks of excess upon his fine, proud features, were at once 
rendered conspicuous by their association with almost seedy ha- 
biliments. 

Before one year had passed he had begun to exhibit himself 
before men, in the pitiable light- of one w^ho had more pride left 
than self-respect. In a word, he had fallen fully into the toils 
of the hellish Jezabel. 

Remember, in judging of poor Manton, that while he is hood- 
winked, through much that is most noble in him, we see this 
woman through the strong light of day. He looks upon her as 
a devotee of science, in the holy cause of human progress and 
social amelioration. A poet and enthusiast, his life is dedicate to 
both. He regards her as a frail being, whose life hangs by a 
thread, and that thread held in his own hand — degraded into 
a false relation to himself — a relation which he loathes, to be 
sure, and which he feels to be heavily and swiftly dragging him 
dowmw^ard, every instant, while it lasts, but w^hich he dare not 
utterly break, for the fear that that frail thread of life, of which 
he has so strangely become the holder, should be snapped. He 
has only seen her, through her representations of herself ; and 
therefore, all that is chivalrous and tender in him has been 
aroused in her defence, as the white roe, hunted into his strong 
protection for defence against the demon hounds of New Eng- 
land bigotry, jealousy, and fear. Apart from all other con- 
siderations, these were sufficient to compel an utter negation of 
self, in all that related to her, as well as a hasty dismissal of 
those suspicions that might thrust themselves upon him, 

A house, in the meantime, had been taken for her in Tenth 
Street, for the rent of which Manton and the benevolent Doctor 
Weasel 'were to become jointly responsible. But the woman 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


153 


was far too astute to permit any such entanglements as might 
lead, prospectively, to mutual explanations between her victims. 
The Doctor alone ultimately became her endorser for the rent. 
She had other designs upon the less plethoric purse of Manton. 

In entering upon this arrangement, Manton had been induced 
to believe, by her own representations, that for ten years before 
the name of Preissnitz had been heard of on this continent, this 
woman had been practising water-cure among her women pa- 
tients. Manton had been sufficiently educated in the profession, 
to understand that its general pretensions were essentially empi- 
rical. He was too much an Indian, indeed, and had lived too 
much among Indians, to regard anything beyond the simplest 
natural agents as efficiently curative. He therefore recognized 
what Preissnitz had discovered, as simply confirmatory of his 
experience of the usages of savage life, and his own observation 
so far as it went. It contained not to him any more than any 
other pathy, the essential vis medicatrix of nature ; but it seemed 
good to him, because it was new to the popular sense, and was 
well worthy to be urged upon its recognition, and thus to find 
its proper place among the other systems. 

He entered upon the project with the fullest enthusiasm, for 
this woman seemed to him, from her personal habits and untir- 
ing energy, to be specially set apart to preach the crusade of 
physical cleanliness to her sex. The house was therefore occu- 
pied by her as proprietress and female physician, while Manton, 
Doctor Weasel, the fiery Jeannette, and victimised Edmond, of 
a former scene, occupied respective chambers as boarders, and 
patrons of the new enterprise. 


154 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

A DIVERSION. 

Never did moon so ebb, or seas so vrane, 

But they left Hope-seed to fill up again. 

Herrick. 

But even in the black abysses of the hell down which he had 
fallen, a flower could grow to the eye of Manton. It was the 
strange birth of a wizard evil place ; yet, as it spread beneath 
his nourishing eye and hand, it daily grew more beautiful to him. 
It may have been the unconscious contrast of a something young, 
living, and blooming in an unnatural sphere like this, where he, 
with the sudden weight of centuries upon him, breathed with 
such heavy gasping. He could not tell what it was that thick- 
ened this drear air ; he only felt the oppression on his lungs, 
and shuddered when sleep had partly sobered him, and he could 
realise it for the hour. His sympathies had been first touched 
for that ugly, impish, persecuted child, to which we have fre- 
quently referred, because he saw, at once, that the mother’s 
querulous jealousy was forever subjecting it to a. species of covert 
torture, which kept it always haggard and wretched. Had it 
been a sick and neglected kitten on the hearth, he would have 
felt for it the same kind of sympathy. He accordingly noticed 
and caressed the child, and endeavoured to rouse its low, igno- 
ble frontal region into activity. The response of a hungry and 
vivid animality, surprised him with its aptitude of apparent in- 
telligence. He did not understand that marvellous faculty of 
imitation which, in all the animal tribes approximating man, or 
which, in other words, are born with embryo souls, assumes the 
external semblances of intelligent expression. The faculty 
of music is below man, and common both to bird and beast; and 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


155 


he had yet to learn, to his heavy cost, how a perception and de- 
tection of the physical harmonies of sound may be utterly distinct 
from the spiritual comprehension of their meaning. He had yet to 
fearfully realise how this insensate aptitude of harmony, which 
enables the monkey of the organ-grinder to dance in perfect 
time the most wild and rapid strathspey that ever Highland pi- 
broch rung, or a stupid parrot to whistle the divinest strains of 
Mozart, could yet bestow upon the combined parrot and monkey 
of our own race that semblant mockery of the ‘‘ gift of tongues,” 
the use of the soul’s higher language. In a word, he would 
have been greatly shocked to hear the affiliated Poll and Jocko 
talk down Shelley in his own etherealisms, and appal Byron with 
the mad bravado of forgotten lines from his own reckless and 
besotted misanthropy. 

Poll and Jocko are easy enough to detect through all the hu- 
man disguises of their combined powers, if the man of common 
sense and society meets the impersonation for the first time, 
when developed, or in most of the latter stages of development. 
But it was a very different thing with poor Manton, who only 
saw an undeveloped, abject animal, from which he expected 
little but the gratitude of the brute for protection, and from which 
anything like a vivid response was as surprising as it was un- 
consciously gratifying to his egotism, for the reason that all that 
was really pleasurable in it was owing to the fact of its consti- 
tutinof a close reflection of’ his own mind. 

Gradually the feeling took possession of him, as he observed 
in her an excessive sensibility, that could weep at a moment’s 
warning, and laugh like April through the glistening storm in 
the next instant, that he would make amends for the great sin 
of his life, in working upon this sensitive organisation for good. 
The fine delicate chords of this frail instrument might be made 
to respond to the divinest notes ; and this creature, with devel- 
oped brain and expanding soul, become a medium of the loftiest 
intelligence — aye, be even to him the consoler of after years. 


156 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


The idea was a strange one, but it suited the intellectual auda- 
city of Manton for that very reason. 

It seemed to his darkened hopelessness, that here, through the 
innocence of childhood, he might renew that broken chain of 
living light which held him. in communion with the upper world, 
until its blackened, severed links, falling about him, had left his 
manacled soul in hopeless bondage. He dreamed that if he 
guarded it with holy zeal, his prayers might rise upon the first 
odors that went up from this strange young flower to Heaven, 
and bring its light down too, in forgiveness, to him. 

He did not know— for he had fed on poisons until it had be- 
come a kind of second nature to him, as to that old Pontiac king 
— that the pure light of spheres could never reach him through this 
lurid glare, which he had now come to think the natural day — 
that the odor of no flower could rise through its thickened air 
to meet the keen, grey stars. The man became bewildered with 
the gorgeous dream he nourished ; and, day by day, without 
knowing why, he threw himself between the child and the bale- 
ful shadow of its mother. He spread his hands above her in 
blessing ; he watched that he might shield her. 

From the moment when his attention had been first attracted 
to her, she seemed to become illuminated ; her ungainly body 
appeared assuming the lines of beauty ; her mean, harsh features, 
softened, as the gnarled shrub assumes, in slow unfolding, the 
graceful mellowed drapery of spring. The coarse, elfin locks, 
grew tamed and smooth ; a dark blue, in soft and gradual dis- 
placement, entered the sharp, greenish, animal eyes. The low, 
ape-like forehead, swelled above meekly-curved brows that had 
lost their hirsute squareness. Indeed, so rapid was the expan- 
sion of the frontal region, that it absolutely startled and affright- 
ed the devout experimenter, when he placed his hand upon it, 
and felt it almost lifted by the wild throbbings beneath. The 
work was progressing too fast; he feared that the general health 
of the subject might fail ; but how to check and remedy this 
powerful reaction, so as to control it from fatal results, now so 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 157 

fully occupied the spiritual subtilty of the man, as to leave him 
little time to think of himself. 

The loathsome contact of the reptile mother daily grew more 
abhorrent to him ; and her characteristic cunning soon disco- 
vered that she had no real hold upon him herself, and at once 
encouraged this growing interest in the ^daughter, with the same 
assiduous art that she had before displayed in tormenting her 
with jealous gibes. Through this help she hoped he might be 
held within her reach. She had already, by her malapert, silly, 
malignant interference, so far completed his ruin as to have 
brought about a desperate, and hnally fatal collision, between 
himself and his business associate in the Journal, which his 
genius had built up ; and now he was thrown again to struggle 
hap-hazard with the world, he had become more reckless and 
desperate than before, so that she feared he might, at any time, 
break away from his bondage, and that, too, while he was still 
of use to her, and before she had gloated fully upon his ruin. 
She had studiously taught the child the process of those infernal 
arts, of which we have seen something ; and, although the crea- 
ture understood nothing of the rationale involved, yet her imi- 
tative cunning made her a most sharp pupil and practitioner. 

By saying that the child did not understand, we mean to con- 
vey, that she could not have explained to herself, or to others, 
what effect certain manipulations would produce specifically ; 
yet she had a feeling of them, a vicious intuition, that answered 
with her all the purposes of intellection. To look at her 
through the eyes of Manton, the uncouth and grotesque girl 
had become a fond and graceful plaything, that clung about him 
in soft caresses, that kept his heart warmed towards her, and 
caused him to regard the mother even with a modified sense of 
the growing disgust which was possessing him, and of which 
her shrewd insight made her fully aware. 

Her child had become necessary as a bait — and her child let 
it be — for, in her hideous creed, nothing was sacred. She- was 
filled towards her victim with fierce yearnings, and, had she 
14 


158 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


possessed the actual entity of soul, would have loved him 
madly — but no, she hated him, as the slave hates the despotic 
master to whom he hourly cringes for each favor. In a word, 
she hated him as a man— or in his double capacity of a spiritual 
being, rather ; and, as even her hate was secondary, her appe- 
tites towards him were those of the weir-wolf for mankind. 
She would devour him body and soul, but she meant to feast 
alone. 

Fearing lest the tenderness of his nature might be too 
strongly moved towards the child, if not diverted in other di- 
rections, she at once set her subtle wits to work to furnish her 
“ Tiger,” as she called him, with sufficient toys of the same 
kind to keep him quiet, and avert the chances of his leaning 
more towards one than another. Some letters were hastily 
despatched to New England, and the result was the appearance 
of a fair and gentle child, about the age of her owm. 

Elna and the stranger, Moione, sprang into each other’s arms 
when they met, as if their very heart were one. They were fast 
friends, it seemed, and a thousand times had Elna said how 
dearly she loved the gentle Moione ; and so jealous were the 
children of their first meeting, that Manton saw little of either 
for several days. A glance at the broad, serene brow, great, 
clear eyes, and delicate mouth of the new-comer, filled him 
with a strange, inexplicable sense of confidence, and even 
relief ; which he could not well explain, to be sure, because it 
was too undefined to himself. He could only wonder how that 
white-browed creature came in such a place.- It seemed as 
though it were a promise, answering to his prayer for the elfish 
Elna, that this calm spirit should have descended in their midst. 

The vehement and headstrong petulance of her nature pro- 
mised to find here a balance that would sober it within the 
bounds of reason ; and strangely, although he saw hope for her, 
and for his own yet undefined purpose in her development, he 
saw nothing definitely in the stranger, but a good angel sent to aid 
him. His soul went out to greet her, but was it yet his heart ? 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


159 


These children were both dedicate to art; and Manton found 
it now by far the most pleasing occupation, to watch and give 
direction to the rapid unfolding of this instinct for the creative. 
The newly-aroused intellect of Elna here displayed many impish 
and brilliant characteristics of the imitative faculty, that might 
easily have been mistaken, by a less partial observer than Man- 
ton, for genius. These peculiarities were strikingly contrasted 
with the placid, but vigorous style of Moione, to a degree that 
one formed the exact offset to the other, not alone in art, but 
in all physical and mental, as well as spiritual idiosyncrasies. 
As these children grew upon him, there seemed something 
strangely familiar in them to Manton. He often tried to ac- 
count for this to himself. Had he seen them before in dreams ? 
Had he known them in some different world, and in a previous 
stage of being ? Why was it that the vehement eccentricities 
of temper, the elfin wildness of motion, and light, mocking 
spirit of this child Elna, all seemed to him so familiar? Why 
was it that the coming of the fair-browed Moione had surprised 
him so little ? There was that in her pure, calm face to startle 
most observers ; yet, from the first, he had looked upon it as a 
matter of course, and as if he had unconsciously waited for her 
to arrive. Why was it that he had felt comforted since she 
came ? What was it, in that name of hers, that sounded to 
him so much like a half-forgotten music-note ? 

So he had questioned himself a thousand times, becoming 
each day more puzzled than the last, until accident furnished 
him with the curious solution of this mystery. One day, in 
looking over a pile of old manuscripts, he. found one, upon 
which he seized, with an unaccountable thrill. In an instant 
the whole thing flashed upon him — 

‘‘I have it! I have it I Here the mystery is solved at last! 
Strange, that I should so utterly have forgotten this pianuscript ! 
Two years ago, before I ever saw these people, this strange 
foreshadowing of what seems now a reality in my life, came to 
me in a summer’s day-dream ; and I wrote it off, to be thrown 


160 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


aside and forgotten until this moment. It seems the most won- 
derful coincidence. I am no believer in miracles, but this ap- 
pears a marvellous reach of the soul into the future ; I was con- 
scious of nothing whenl wrote, but the pleasure x)f embodying 
in words what seemed to me a beautiful thought ; strange, it 
should have been thus thrown aside and so utterly forgotten, 
until the increasing coincidences of my present relation have 
gradually forced me back to find it! What blind instinct, 
struggling in me, sent me here to look through these old manu- 
scripts, with no definite purpose.^ What vague struggle of 
consciousness and memory is this, that has been moving me for 
weeks to understand why it is those children seem so familiar to 
me? Strange! strange! strange!” 

Manton now proceeded to read this curious manuscript, the 
contents of whichwe shall also place before you : — 

THE LEGEND OF THE MOCKING-BIRD. 

Friend, do you know the Mocking-Bird ? I warrant, if he is 
a familiar of your childhood, you have a thousand times won- 
dered at the strange malignant intelligence which characterises 
his tyrannical supremacy over all the feathered singers. Not 
only is he “ accepted king of song,” but he is the pest and 
terror of the groves and meadows. Spiteful and subtle, he 
conquers in battle, or by manoeuvre, all in reach of him ; and 
you may easily detect his favourite haunts, by the incessant din 
and clatter of wrath and fear he keeps up by his malicious 
mockery among his neighbors. From my earliest childhood, I 
can remember having been singularly impressed by the weird 
and curious humors of this creature. Since those times of in- 
nocent wonder, I have been a wide wanderer. The preposses- 
sions of my fancy were irresistibly attracted by the wild legend 
I give below. It was told me by an old Wako w^arrior. 

On a hill-side, above an ancient village of his tribe, while we 
were stretched upon the grass beneath a moss-hung live-oak, he 


ETHERIAL SOFTD'OWN. 


161 


related it. The moon was out, gilding with silver alchemy the 
shrub-crowned crests of prairie undulations — piled, as we may 
conceive the waves of the ocean would be — stayed by a word 
from heaven, while on the leap* before a tempest. It was a 
fitting scene for such a story. Out from the dark gorges on 
every side ascended the night-song of the mocking-bird. The 
old man had listened to the rapid gushing symphonies for some 
time in silence, then drawing a long breath he remarked — “ That 
is an evil bird!” I begged him for an explanation, and he pro- 
ceeded. 

Those peculiarities, indeed, of the Indian’s phraseology — 
those broken-pointed expressions, so condensed and meaning, 
and eked out continually by significant gestures, I could hardly 
hope to convey, were I fully able to remember them. The 
wild and fanciful methods of the Indian mfnd, believing what 
it dwells upon, yet half conscious that it is dreaming, are diffi- 
cult to remember or repeat. We can only do the best we may 
to preserve the idiosyncracies. 

‘‘ Yahshan, the Sun,” said the old chief, pausing reverently 
as he uttered the name, “ in his great wigwam beyond the big 
waters, made the first Wako ! He laid him in his fire-canoe 
and oared his way up through the thick mists that hung every- 
where. When his arm tired of pulling, he took him out and 
stretched him upon his back on a wide dark bank, and then 
rowed on his path and left him. The Wako lay like the stem 
of an oak, still and cold. Before Yahshan entered his night- 
lodge in the west, a dim hazy light had hung over the figure, 
but this only made its broad couch look blacker — for nothing 
that had form could be seen. Yahshau, the Moon — the pale 
bride of Yahshan — came forth when he had gone in, and rowed 
her silver bark through the ugly shadows above the Wako, to 
watch lest the spirits that hated Yahshan should do harm to his 
work, which it had taken him many long ages to finish. He 
was very proud of it, and the evil spirits hated him that he had 
made a thing so goodly, to look upon ; and they drifted hideous 
14 ^ 


162 


SPIEITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


phantom shapes across the way of Yahshau, and tried to over- 
w^helm her light canoe, but its keen shining prow cut through 
them all, and left them torn and^ragged behind her. At last 
they fled, for when her eye was on the mute form of the Wako, 
they feared to do it any harm. When all were gone, and 
nothing that* looked like mischief was to be seen, she too went 
in. And then they flocked out from the deep places where 
they had been hid, and gathered with hot fingers and red eyes 
about the quiet Wako. He did not stir, for his senses had not 
yet been w'aked. Quick they pried open his clenched teeth, and 
poured a green smoking fluid down his throat. Just then the 
prow of the fire-canoe appeared parting the eastern mists, and 
they all fled. 

“Yahshan came on. He looked upon his work and smiled 
— for he did not know that evil had been wrought — and came 
now in glory, riding on golden billows, scattering the chill mists 
that .clung around the icy form, for it was time to waken it up 
with life. He rolled the yellow flood upon it, and the figure 
shivered ; again the glowing waves pass over it — the figure was 
convulsed — tossed its limbs about, and -rocked to and fro. Its 
eyes were open, but it saw not ; its ears were open, but it heard 
not ; it was tasteless and dumb ; it smelt not, nor did it feel. 
Life had gone into it, and the heart beat, the pulses throbbed, 
the blood coursed fast, and it was monstrous strong. But w’hat 
was this? Being, self-fed and self-consumed, hung upon the 
void of midnight, hurried and driven from its own still gather- 
ing impulse through a chaos of crude matter. That green 
liquid of the evil one now rushed in burning currents through 
the veins, and it dashed away, crawling, leaping, tumbling, like 
a mad torrent, over piled-up. rocks across the dark plains, 
striking against hard, formless things, and rebounding to rush 
on more swiftly, till it had left the fire-canoe and Yahshan all 
astounded, far behind, and the terror of darkness was beneath 
and above it. But what was this to it? On! on! the green 
fire still burned within, and it must go — chasms and cliffs, with 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


163 


jagged roeks — into them, over them all. What were rough 
points and bruises, and crashing down steeps, and midnight to 
it? There was no feeling, yet the heart leaped, the blood 
careered, the limbs must follow. Motion, blind motion — no 
control, no guide — but through and over everything, move it 
must. 

‘‘ The bad spirits thronged after it, grating and clanging their 
scaly pinions against each other, and creaking their pleasant 
gibes, when suddenly there was no footing, and the headlong 
form pitched down, downward, whirling through the empty 
gloom, while all the herd of ill things laughed and flapped them- 
selves in the prone wake behind it. 

“ At once, with a sigh of wings, like a sharp moan of tree- 
harps, a shape of light shot arrowy down amidst them. They 
scattered, howling with affright. It bore up the falling Wako 
on strong, shining vans an instant, then stretching them out, 
subsided slowly, and laid it on a soft, dark couch again. This 
was Ah-i-wee-o, the soul of harmonies, the good spirit of sweet 
sounds. She is the great queen of spirit-land. Yahshan and 
Yahshau are her slaves ; and all the les,ser fire-canoes that skim 
in Yahshau’s train obey her. She gives all life its outer being; 
to know and feel beyond itself — without her, life is only motion. 
There is no form, no law, no existence beside, for she holds 
and grants them each sense, and in them reveals all these. 
Yahshan could give life — but not content with this, he was am- 
bitious. The formless chaos his fire-canoe sailed over must be 
a world of beauty ! A soul dwelt in it, but that world was pas- 
sionless and barren. Yahshan had given life to many shapes, 
but the cold spirit had scorned them all ; and yet she must be 
wooed to wed herself to life, that, out of the glow of that em- 
brace, might spring the eternal round of thoughts made vital, 
clothed out of shapeless matter with symmetry. He planned 
an impious scheme. He would not pray the good Ah-i-wee-o 
for aid, but would act alone, and be the great Medicine Spirit. 
He would frame a creature from out the subtlest elements within 


164 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


this chaos, so exquisite that, when it came to live, confusion 
would be harmonised in it, and the order of its being go forth 
the law of beauty and of form to all. Then that coy spirit of 
desolation w^ould be won at last, and passing into its life, a royal 
lineage would spring forth, and procreation wake insensate 
matter in myriad living^ things, gorgeous ideals, harmoniously 
wrought, and self-producing forever. All these would be his 
subjects, and- he would rule, with Yahshau, this most excellent 
show himself! So he labored bn, in the deep chambers of his 
night-lodge, through -many cycles. The work was finished. It 
lay in state, within his golden wigwam at the east, that Yahshau 
and her glittering train might look upon it and wonder. Then 
he carried it forth ; but evil spirits are wise, and, though it was 
a mighty work, they knew that it w^as too daring, and that Ah- 
i-wee-o would punish its presumption, and would not let the 
senses wake with life ; so they poured that fearful fluid in, 
that fires the blood, and makes life slay itself. They say the 
w^hite man has dealt with them, has learned from them the spell 
of that bad magic, and makes his “ fire-water” by it. So when 
Yahshan w^aked up life, its power waked too ; for he knew not 
of the craft, and it tore the glorious w^ork from out his hands, 
while they flew behind and mocked him. 

“ Ah-i-wee-o bent over* the swooning Wako ; for the life that 
had been so tumultuous scarcely now stirred his pulse. She 
was a thing of beams, silvery and clear ; a w^arm, lustrous light 
clung around her limbs and showed their delicate outline. She 
floated on the air, her wings and figure waving wdth its eddies, 
like the shadows of a Lee-ka-loo bird upon the sea. Her eyes, ' 
deep as the fathomless blue heaven, looked down on him with 
pity and unutterable gentleness. It was a marvellous work the 
overdaring Yahshan had accomplished. Beautiful, exceedingly, 
was that mute form, and rarely exquisite its finish. Must that 
glorious mechanism be destroyed, and all the noble purpose of 
its framing be lost? No! She moves her tiny, flower-like 
hand above it, and every blotch and all the bruises disappear, 


ETnERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


165 


and it was fair to view, and perfect as when Yahshan had given 
it the last touch. Now» she stooped beside and touched him, 
white sparks flew up, and she sang a low song. At the first 
note, the dark, formless masses round them quivered and rocked: 
the Wako smiled ; for feeling now first thrilled along his nerves. 
The song rose ; the dumb things shook and stirred the more. 
She touched his nostrils and his lips ; the sparks played between 
her small fingers and danced up. Yet a louder note swelled 
out, and the thick mists swayed and. curled, and a cool wind 
rushed through them, and dashed a stream of odor on his face. 
He drew long breaths, and sighed with the burden of delight, 
and moved his lips to inarticulate joy ; and now that wondrous 
song pealed out clear, ringing bursts that shook the blue arch 
and swung the fire-boats, cadent with its gushes ; and through 
the dim mists great shapes, like rocks and trees, leaped to the 
measure, marshalling in lines and order. Now she pressed his 
eyelids with her fingers ; the silver sparks sprung in exulting 
showers, snapping and bursting with sweet smells. Once more, 
pealing triumphant, a keen, shining flood, that symphony poured 
wilder forth ; his eyes fly open, and that heavy mist, like a great 
curtain, slowly rises. First the green grass and the flowers, 
bending beneath the gentle breeze, turn their deep eyes and 
spotted cups towards him in salutation, and all the creeping 
things and birds, that love the low herbs, dew-besprent, are 
there : and as the mist goes up, majestically slow, other forms 
of bird and beast are seen, and dark trunks of trees, and great 
stems beside them, looking like trees, until his eyes have traced 
them up to the great moose, the big-horned stag, the grizzly 
bear, and the vast-moving mammoth. But tfien it has drunk 
the harmony of grades ; for all are there. And, side by side, 
he marks how, from the crawler, every step ascends, in beauti- 
ful gradation ; the last linked to the first in one all-perfect chain. 
Then came the knotted limbs, with all their burden of green 
leaves ; and, underneath, the round, yellow fruits, or purple 
flushing of rich clusters and gay forms, that flutter through them 


166 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


on wings of amethyst, or flame, or gold, their every movement 
a music-note, although all was dumb to him as yet. Still 
higher the mist-curtain goes ; and the grey cliffs, with shining 
peaks, and a proud, fierce-eyed bird perched on them, meet his 
gaze ; and then the mists float far away, and scatter into clouds, 
and all the splendor and the pomp of the thronged earth is 
spread, a gorgeous, but voiceless, revelation to his new being. 
With every touch of the enchantress, Ah-i-wee-o, the soul of 
chaos had passed into a sense ; and all the pleasant harmonies 
the Wako felt, and all the scented harmonies the Wako tasted 
and inhaled — all the thoughts of harmony in grand or graceful 
forms the Wako saw — that blissful interpenetration gave con- 
ception to, and the magic of that powerful song brought forth. 
One more act, and his high marriage to eternity is consum- 
mated : ecstacy has found a voice, and all these harmonies ar- 
ticulation, yet his ears were sealed ; and though music flowed 
in through every other sense, his dumb lips strove in vain to 
wake its language. 

‘‘But this was the supremest gift of all. This was the charm 
that had drawn beauty out of chaos — the magic by which Ah- 
i-wee-o ruled in spirit-land, and chained the powers of evil. It 
were death to spirits less than she, to hear the fierce crashing of 
those awful symphonies she knew. His nature could not bear 
the revelation. Besides, what had he to do with that celestial 
minstrelsy which led the heaven-fires on their rounds ? There 
was ambition, full enough, up there ; and Yahshan had been 
playing far too rashly on those burning keys. She would not 
curse this perfect being with a gift too high, and add another 
daring rebel to her realm! No! he must be ruler here, as she 
ruled everything. From all those harmonies* he must extract 
the tone, and on it weave his song of power to lead them cap- 
tive. This divine music is the voice of all the beautiful, the 
higher language of every sense; and not until the soul is 
brimmed to overflowing with sparkling thoughts of it, drank in 
through each of them, will the beamy current run, as streams do 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


167 


in the skies. He must lead the choir of all this being — yet, this 
infinite sense would overbear his nature, if suddenly revealed ; 
it can only w’ake in other creatures, as its birth matures in him 
— and he shall go forth into silence — every living thing shall be 
mute — and from the low preluding of the waters and the winds 
the first notes of his exulting powers shall be learned, and they 
shall learn of him — until ^^1 the air is one harmony — all breath 
takes music on, and echoes bear the twice-told glee — until faint- 
er, more faint, it is gone ! 

‘‘ She touched his ears — the sparks leaped up — she pressed his 
lips with one entrancing kiss and sprang away. The quick 
moan of her pinions cleaving the air is the first sound that steals 
on the new sense, and stirs the dead vast of silence that weighs 
upon his being. And now myriad soft wavelets of the infinite 
ocean follow — breaking gently over him — the whisper of quiver- 
ing leaves to the caressing zephyr, the low tremble of the forest- 
chords, and the deep booming of great waves afar off; the ring 
and dash of cascades nearer, the tinkling of clear drops in caves, 
the gush and ripple of cold springs, the beat of pulses, the purr 
of breathings, and the hum of wings, in gentlest ravishment pos- 
sess his soul — for now is the bridal of his immortality consum- 
mate in a delirium of bliss, and lulled upon his couch he sweetly 
sinks into the first sleep. 

“ The Wako is roused next morning by a warm flood from the 
fire-canoe — for Yahshan had come forth right royally, and though 
Ah-i-wee-o had humbled his presumption and would not permit 
him to be sole lord as he had hoped, yet all he had dared at- 
tempt had been accomplished, and he believed it to be in full 
his own work, and thus wore all his panoply of splendor in honor 
of his glorious creation. The Wako rose, and lo ! around him 
as far as the eye could reach, a mighty multitude of all the ani- 
mals of the earth were rising too. They waited for their king, 
and it was he. They came flocking around him to caress him 
in obeisance — a gentle, eager throng! 

“ The panther stroked his sleek glossy fur against his legs and 


168 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


rolled and gambolled like a kitten at his feet. The great bear 
of the north rubbed his jaws against his hand and, begged to be 
caressed. Big mountain (the mammoth) thrust his huge tusks 
in for a touch ; and the white-horned moose bowed his smooth- 
bristled neck and plead with meek black eyes for notice. All 
the huge grotesque -things pressed around, and the smaller 
creatures, pied, flecked, and dot^d, crowded beneath their 
heavy limbs, unhurt — all, full of confidence and love, gracefully 
sporting to win one glance. 

“ Above him the air was thick with wings, and the whirr and 
winnowing of soft plumes made pleasant music, and the play 
of brilliant hues was like a thousand rainbows arched and wav- 
ing over him ; and the little flame-like things would flutter near 
his face, and gleam their sharp brown eyes into his, and strive, 
in vain, to warble out their joy, for their sweet pipes were not 
yet tuned. 

All were there, great and small ; and the wide- winged eagle 
came from its high perch and circled round his head, and 
brushed its strong plumes with light caressing, through his hair. 
He went with them into the forest burdened with rich fruits, and 
ate, then shook the heavy clusters down for them. Then he 
passed forth to look upon the land^ the first shepherd, with that 
countless flock thronging about his steps. 

“ It was, indeed, a lovely land ! Here a rolling meadow, there 
a heavy wood ; the trees all bearing fruits, or hung wdth vines 
and bloom. A still, deep river, doubled sky and trees in its 
clear mirror, and he gazed, in a half- waking wonder, when the 
ripples the swan-trains made, shivered it to glancing fragments. 

“But wander which way he might, he came to tall gray cliffs, 
with small streams, that pitched from their cloudy summits, and 
bounding off from the rough crags below, filled all the valley 
with cool spray. 

“He found his lovely world was fenced about with square 
towering rocks, that nothing without wdngs could scale. But 


ETHBRIAL SOFTDOWN. 169 

there was room enough for all, and profuse plenty the fruitful 
earth supplied. «, 

“At noon, he went beneath a grove of sycamores, where a 
great stream gushed out, and laid him down beside its brink, 
while his subjects stretched and perched around him, in the 
shade, to rest. His sleep was- broken by strange new melodies 
that crept in. He opened his eyes ; near him were two maidens, 
and all the birds and beasts were gathered around them, and 
they were singing gay, delicious airs, teaching the birds to 
warble. 

“ One of them was fair — white as the milk-white fawn that 
licked her hand and gazed up at her musical lips ; but her hair 
w^as dark and a strong light gleamed in her- small black eye. 
This was Ki-ke-wee. She sung and laughed and kissed the 
song-bird that perched upon her finger, and when it tried to 
follow her wild carol, she mocked its blunders and stamped her 
tiny foot, and frowned and laughed and warbled yet a wilder 
symphony to puzzle it the more. 

“ The other was a darker maiden with large, gentle eyes. 
This w’as Mnemoia ; her voice was soft and low — and she sang 
sweet songs and looked full of love and patience. The Wako 
half rose in joy and wonder. They bounded towards him — 
sang a rapturous roundelay to a giddy, whirling dance, then 
threw their arms about his neck and kissed him. They became 
his squaws, and Yahshau smiled upon them as she sailed by that 
night. 

“ The Wako was very happy and Ki-ke-wee was his favorite. 
She grew very lovely and full of curious whims that each day 
became more odd. She loved the blue jay most among the 
birds, and taught him all his antics ; and the magpie was a pet ; 
and the passionate, bright hummer lived about her lips. 

“ As yet nothing but Sounds and scenes of love were in that 
little world ; and the strong, terrible brutes knew not that they 
had fierce passions or the taste for blood ; but Ki-ke-wee would 
stand before the grizzly bear and pluck his jaws and switch his 
15 


170 


SPIKITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


fierce eyeballs until he learned to growl with pain, and then 
she would mock •him ; and when he growled louder she would 
mock him still, until at last he roared \vith rage and sprang upon 
the panther — for he feared Ki-ke- wee’s eye ! — and the panther 
tasted blood and sprang to the battle fiercely. And now the 
tempest broke, and everything with claws and fangs howled in 
the savage discord. Ki-ke-wee clapped her hands and laughed. 
Mnemoia raised the enchantment of her song above it all, and 
it was stilled. Then Ki-ke-wee would tease the eagle and mock 
him till he screamed and dashed at the great vulture in his rage ; 
and she would dance and shout for joy ; and Mnemoia would 
quell it, then go aside and weep. 

“ The Wako loved the beautiful witch, and when he plead 
with her she would mock even him, and every day and every 
hour this mocking elf stirred some new” passion, until at last 
even Mnemoia’s song had lost its charm, and the bear skulked 
in the deep thickets and shook them with his growl, and the 
panther moaned from out the forest, and the gaunt wolves 
snapped their white teeth and howled, and all the timid things 
fled away from these fierce yoices ; and battle, and blood, and 
death, w^ere rife where love and peace had been. The birds 
scattered in affright and sung their new songs in snatches only ; 
and hateful sounds of deadly passions, and the screams and 
wails of fear, resounded everywhere. 

“ Ki-ke-wee made a bow and poisoned the barbed arrow, and 
mocked the death-bleat of the milk-white fawm w^hen the Wako 
shot it at her tempting. This was too much! Ah-i-wee-o 
cursed her and she fell. The Wako knelt over her and wept; 
and when the dissolving spasm seemed upon her, he covered his 
face with his hands and wailed aloud. A voice just above him 
wailed tob ! He looked up surprised ; a strange bird wdth 
graceful form and sharp black spiteful eyes was mocking him ! 
He looked dowm— Ki-ke-wee w”as gone ; and the strange bird 
gaped its long bill hissing at him ; and when it spread its wings 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


171 


to bound up from the twig in an ecstacy of passion, he knew by 
the broad white Gripes across them that it was Ki-ke-wee ! 

‘‘ He found the neglected Mnemoia weeping in the forest ; and 
soon after they scaled the cliffs and fled from that f^ir land to 
hide from Ki-ke-wee. But she has followed them and mocks 
their children yet, and we dare not slay her, for the wise men 
think she was the daughter of the Evil Spirit that poured the 
green fluid down the Wako’s throat, and that the same bad fire 
burns yet in our veins. Our hunters chasing the mountain-goat 
sometimes look from the bluffs into that lovely vale that lies 
in tlie bosom of the Rocky Mountain chain, but they never 
venture to go down !” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

SOME SELECT SCENES. 

Some short glimpses of daily scenes may convey, perhaps, a 
clearer idea of how life sped now with Manton, amidst the new 
charms which it had gained. The whole man was rapidly 
changed ; his habits of excess in wine-drinking were, in a great 
measure, thrown aside, and the hours he had thus wasted 
in stupifying madness, were given to the society and develop- 
ment of these fair children, that had thus come to him in bless- 
ing. He now knew no difference in his thought of them ; they 
had grown to be twin-flowers to him, transfused with a most 
tender light of spring-dawn in his darkened heart. Yes, there 
it was — that little spot of light — he felt it warm, and slowly 
spread and waken in soft beams, tremulous and faint, along the 
ice-bound chaos where the life-floods met within him. 

His brow would grow serene and lose its painful tension, as, 
hour by hour, he w^atched beside them, guiding their wayward 


172 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


pencils with his sure eye, to teach their yet irresolute wills and 
unaccustomed fingers to act together with that consciousness 
that always triumphs ; and then, with the long evenings, came 
lessons in botany, or the eloquent discourse, half poetical, 
half rhapsodical, and all inspired, which led their young spirits 
forth, amidst the mysteries and beauties of the other kingdoms 
of the natural world. Or, when the stars came out, and their 
calm inspiration slid into his soul, he communed with them 
of higher themes — of aspirations holy, wise, and pure — of the 
heroic souls of art — of their pale, unmoved dedication, through 
dark, saddened years of neglect, obloquy, and want — of their 
glorious triumphs, their immortal bays, that time can never 
wither — until, with trembling lips and glistening eyes, they hung 
upon his words. 

It was wonderful to see how quickly Elna wept, like an April 
shower, at any tender word or thought; but the great eyes 
of Moione Snly trembled like dark violets brimming with heavy 
dew. All the truth, the religion of Manton’s soul, was poured 
out at such times. 

The door would sharply open — ‘‘Elna! Moione! go to 
bed !” This would be spoken in a low tone, evidently half- 
choked with rage, by the woman. Her bent form looming 
within the shadow of the entry, looks ghastly enough in her 
white gown, loose dark hair, and the greenish glitter of her 
oblique eye. The poor children rise, with a deep sigh from 
Moione over her broken dream, and a quick exclamation of 
petulant wrath from Elna — while Manton mutters an involun- 
tary curse on the unwelcome intruder ; and, as the light forms 
of the children recede before his vision and disappear in the 
dark passage, he shudders, unconsciously, as if a ghoul had 
disturbed him at a feast with angels. 

Now, again, had he fallen back to helL With a fierce out- 
break of jealous fury, she would spring into the room, as 
if literally to devour him with talons and teeth; and, when 
but a few paces off, catching his cold, concentrated eye, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


173 


she would stagger backwards, as if shot through the heart, toss 
her white arms wildly into the air, and, with head thrown back, 
utter, in a strange, choking, guttural screech- — 

‘‘Auh! auh! auh! — yaugh! — you kill! — you kill me!” and 
pitch forward convulsively, with the blood bursting in torrents 
from her mouth. Then came the ^ong, harrowing, and oft- 
described scene of terror, remorse, pity, on the part of Manton, 
and the plea for forgiveness, the slow recovery, and — and 
so on. 

Or else, with some modification of tactics, the lioness changed 
to the lamb, the Gorgon-head to that of Circe, she would throw 
herself upon him, with tender expostulations, call him che- 
rubim,” and stroke his ‘‘ hyacinthian curls ;” and, when that 
failed, cling about his knees, and weep and pray, and then, as 
the desperate resort, suddenly swoon, with a tremendous crash, 
upon the floor, and lie there for an hour, if need be, in a con- 
dition of syncope, so absolute, that Manton — who had now wit- 
nessed this comparatively harmless phenomenon so many times, 
as to be relieved from any apprehensions of immediate results — 
had lately felt the curiosity of the philosopher irresistibly aroused 
in him, and would frequently leave her for a considerable length 
of time, in order to watch the symptoms, before he proceeded 
to apply the very simple remedy for recalling her to conscious- 
ness, with which, by the way, she had furnished him long ago, 
in advance, through certain adroit hints and indirections. When 
he had satisfied his more analytical moods, in this way, he would 
proceed with the restorative process, as per prescription. 

This mysterious operation consisted in placing the pillows of 
the sofa, or the rounds of a chair, under her feet, so as to ele- 
vate them at a slight angle higher than the head. As he was 
led to understand the result, the blood, by the laws of capillary 
attraction, was instantly carried up, from her head to her feet, 
thereby relieving the oppression of the brain ; when lo ! to this 
new open sesame,” the rigid lids flew wide apart, disclosing 
eyes as vivid with life as ever. 

15 * 


174 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


The strangest part of this scene consisted in the fact, that 
■while the fit lasted, it was impossible to perceive the slightest 
symptoms of breathing or pulsation, any more than in the most 
broadly- defined case of catalepsy, or. of absolute death itself. 
It was, therefore, clear enough to his mind, that such conditions 
could not be entirely counterfeit; though the suggestion had 
now become frequent, that they might, after long training, be- 
come, in a great measure, voluntary. 

Another scene. The mother reclines upon her bed, and the 
child Elna by her side, with arms around her neck and face 
against her bosom. Moione stands leaning over the foot-board, 
with folded arms, her pale face expressing mingled grief, anger, 
and pain, while she looks with a cold, steadfast glance into the 
oblique eye of the woman, who addresses her rapidly, in bitter 
tones — 

“ You love that bad man, Moione 
“ Yes, I do !” said the young girl, curtly and coldly. 

“Ha! you acknowledge it, do you, ungrateful girl? Ac- 
knowledge that, at your age, you love a profligate wretch like 
this ? a man utterly without principle, Avhere our sex is con- 
cerned. A villain, who has already attempted the ruin of my 
own daughter, under my very eyes I” 

Moione turned- paler still at this, and looked inquiringly to- 
wards her friend Elna, who, however, gave no sign, either by 
word or movement, of dissent to this vile insinuation. In- 
stantly the blood mounted to Moione’s brow, and her gentle eye 
shot fire, her thin lips curled with scorn — 

“ It is false 1 It is false ! You know it to be so ! He has 
taught us nothing but what is pure and high! He never 
breathed a thought of evil to either of us, and Elna dares not 
say so ! I love him as our lofty, noble brother, and shall con- 
tinue to do so so long as he shows himself only to me, and to 
her, as he has done ! Pray, madam, why do you permit him to 
remain in the house, if he be so wicked ? You tell me you 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


175 

have the power to turn him out at any minute. Why not do it ? 
Why do you trust your child with him, at all hours, and under 
all circumstances? Why do you so constantly. seek his society 
yourself? If he were the fiend you represented, one would 
think you would have reason to fear for yourself, if not for Etna. 
What he has done once he will do again ! How do you recon- 
cile all this ?” 

The flashing look and withering tone in which this unex- 
pected 'outburst of indignation, on the part of the usually quiet 
Moione, had been delivered, cowed the craven nature to which 
it was addressed. It was but for an instant, though ; her subtle 
cunning returned to the charge, in a lower tone, and on another 
tack. She reached out her hand, affectionately, towards her — 

‘‘ Come, Moione, dear ! come, kiss me !” 

The child did not move, but merely answered in a low, con- 
temptuous ‘‘ No !” 

The woman continued, in a w’heedling tone, ‘‘Hear! my 
naughty Moione ! She will not come to kiss me, when I love 
her so ! Moione does not understand everything she sees, or 
she would not have spoken thus sharply to her friend. She does 
not understand that I am striving to save this poor youth from 
his frightful vices ! his wine-drinking, his tobacco, his meat- 
eating, and all those ugly sins which so deface, what I hope one 
day to see a beautiful spirit ! She does not know I must endure 
this evil that good may come 1 She does not realise how much 
pain it costs me to have the purity of my household thus dese- 
crated by his poisoned sphere I She does not remember that 
God has placed us. here, on this earth, to bear and forbear to- 
wards his erring children ; that they may, through us, become 
regenerate and redeemed ! I know his eloquence, I know his 
subtlety, therefore I have warned you against him ; he cannot 
be dealt with as other men, for he is but ^ foolish, headstrong 
boy, with a great soul, if he were only free ; but while his vices 
hold him in bondage, he is not to be trusted. Though I have 
lifted him out of the very gutters of debasement — given him a 


176 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


home in my house — I have no confidence, at this moment, that 
he would not deliberately ruin either you or Elna to-morrow, if 
he could ! You should, therefore, rather pity me than be angry 
with me, dearest Moione !” 

‘‘ So I perceive !” said the young girl, with a cold sneer, as 
she turned and walked haughtily from the room, slamming the 
door emphatically behind her. The woman sprang to her feet, 
with an expression of ungovernable fury in her face. ‘‘ The 
insolent, ungrateful wretch! This is what I get for all my 
trouble to make something out of her — to render her of some 
value to me! To sa-a-ve her!” and she hissed out the words 
with a horrible writhing of her features, while the pupil of her 
oblique eye was wrung aside, until nothing but the white, 
ghastly blank of the ball was to be seen. 

‘‘Yes, I’ll save you! I’ll use you, you insolent beggar! I 
have not brought you here, alone, as the ant carries off the 
aphide, to give spiritual milk to my own offspring ! I brought 
you to use, too, and use you I will! I will' coin you into profit! 
I’ll humble your insolent airs! I’ve got a market for you 
already, and a bidder! Dare to cross my path, ha? — with 
your supercilious insolence ? I’ll bow that white forehead ! I’ll 
fill those blue eyes with ashes ! until, bleared and rheumy with 
premature decay, you crawl to kiss my foot for favors !” 

During this horrid apostrophe, the woman had stood stiffened 
where she had first planted her feet upon the carpet, staring 
blankly at the door through which the young girl had passed, 
and throwing her arms out in wild gesticulations after her. 

The, girl Elna lay, in the meantime, with her face half con- 
cealed in the pillow, closely watching, with one sharp eye 
uncovered, the whole scene. The woman, who had forgotten 
herself in her fury, turned suddenly and saw her. Her manner 
instantly changed. She threw herself by her side, took her 
caressingly into her arms, d-rew her face close to hers, breathed 
upon it long and steadily, and then commenced in low, confi- 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 177 

dential tones, a conversation between them, the purport of 
which we must leave to conjecture. 

Another scene. About this time, Manton had effected the 
advantageous sale of a new work, which placed him suddenly 
in the possession of a larger sum of money than he had been 
able to command, at -one time, for a long period. His first 
thought was for his young proteges, and, although his own ward- 
robe was sufficiently dilapidated, he expended a portion of the 
sum for. their comfort and gratification before he thoOght at all 
of his own necessities. Unluckily for him, however, it was 
evening when the money was received, and the purchases in- 
tended to surprise them were the only ones made on the way to 
the house. 

In almost boyish eagerness, and all breathless with the de- 
light of giving joy to these gentle ones he loved so much, he 
hastened home and threw his presents down before them, to be 
greeted with rapturous expressions and gleeful merriment, the 
silvery and most musical clamoring of which, soon brought the 
woman, Marie, to the scene. Her eyes -danced and glistened 
as she saw them; her infallible instinct scented the money in an 
instant. 

‘‘Beautiful! beautiful!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands 
with childlike artlessness. “ How lovely ! How sweet ! How 
noble ! How generous of you to think of these dear girls first, 
when you need so much yourself!” and she looked up with be- 
witching^candor into the face of Manton, though it might have 
been noticed by more careful observers that one eye turned ob- 
liquely towards his pockets. She sprang sudilenly to his side, 
and leant affectionately against his arm, which she clasped with 
both her hands. 

“ Ah, my gentle Tiger! How shall I ever thank you for your 
unwearying kindness to these my tender blossoms ? My precious 
‘ Monies !’ You are too good ! We shall never know how to 
thank you enough !” 


178 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


And leaning still closer and in a more confidential manner 
towards his ear, while her forehead flushed and her voice sank, 
You sold the book, did you 

“ Yes.” 

“ For how much ?” 

‘‘ The receipts in my pocket will show !” 

‘‘ Ah, let us see them then !” said she playfully, as she thrust 
her hand into his pocket. ‘‘ I want to see if those evil and 
stupid publishers have understood the value of the precious 
genius they were purchasing ! Oh, dear, why what a treasure ! 
Here are fifties, twenties, ever so many!” while she, with eager 
and trembling hands, fumbled the notes that she had snatched 
from the vest-pocket where he had, with his characteristic care- 
lessness of money, thrust them loosely. “ Ah, I must take time 
to count all this treasure for you, for I do n’t believe you know 
how much you ’ve got, you careless boy !” And as she said 
this she hastily deposited the money in the bottom of her pocket. 

Manton looked at her a moment with a very hard, cold 
glance, while a flush of indignation gleamed across his brow ; 
for he had a sure presentiment that he should never see this 
money again. The great misfortune of his organisation was his 
recklessness in regard to money, and the absolute inability of his 
nature to comprehend the sterile meannesses of its abject wor- 
shippers. For the first time the impulse to strike this woman 
to the earth came across him, but in an instant this angry feeling 
was dissipated amidst the gay and laughing caresses of jj^s petted 
favorites. 

When, on tl^ next day, Manton demanded of the woman an 
account of the money, she turned pale and red, looked upwards 
and downwards, and finally askance, while she faintly told him 
that she had spent the whole ; but, for his good, as well as that 
of the dear girls and herself, “for,” she said, “you know you 
are so careless about money, so generous, so liberal, that you 
would have thrown it all away without accomplishing any of the 
good you so much desire. Pray, forgive me, for my anxiety to 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


179 

do the best for us all !” and as she saw the brow of Manton, 
who had not uttered a word, settling darker and darker above 
his cold dilated eyes, she sank upon her knees at his feet, and 
clasping his in her arms, she plaintivejy plead — 

Ah, forgive me ! forgive me ! - I acted for the best ! For 
God’s sake do not look so, you will kill me !” 

He spurned her contemptuously from him with his foot, and 
retreating, as she crawled abjectly back again, he said in a 
measured, deliberate tone — 

“ Keep away from me, woman! You may retain your ill- 
gotten plunder once more, but, mark you, if ever you dare to 
put your hands into my pockets again I will strike you to the 
earth, woman as you are, and trample ymi beneath my feet, as 
I would another reptile ! I have had enough of this remorseless 
fleecing !” And spurning yet more contemptuously her persistent 
attempts to clutch his knees again, he left her swooning upon 
the floor. He went forth with the scales falling from his eyes 
regarding this woman, in some particulars at least. 

The sequel to the last scene is too rich to be passed over. 
Since that wholesale and impudent robbery, Manton had main- 
tained his ground firmly, in regard to money. All her arts were 
brought to bear, in vain ; he steadily and sternly refused to be 
plundered any farther; until finally, his feminine “saviour” 
being driven to the extreme verge of desperation, tried a new 
and dashing game. 

She had just been reading Zschokke’s charming tale, “ Illumi- 
nation, or the Sleep-Walker.” The reader will remember how 
the Sleep-Walker, the heroine of the tale, instructs Emanuel, 
while in the clairvoyant state, as to how he should proceed in 
her own case, which he had been elected to restore to health 
again, through the nervous, or sympathetic medium, by re-es- 
tablishing the balance of the lost physical with the spiritual life. 
That, in addition, the Sleep-Walker revealed to him the 
thoughts of his own soul, and counselled him as an angel would 


180 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


have done, against the evil she saw in him — tells him too, that 
he must not regard her weakness, or the petulance of her words 
towards him in her waking state. 

Well, our clairvoyant, after reading this book herself, exhib- 
ited an unusual degree of restlessness to have it read by Man- 
ton, too ; nothing would' content her until he had fairly .com- 
menced it, when she knew there was no probability of his 
pausing until he got through. She watched him during the 
reading, with great curiosity, frequently interrupting him to draw 
out his opinion as he progressed. 

Everybody knows the fascination of the tale, and confesses 
the fine skill with which its wonderful details are wrought up. 
Manton could do no less ; he was charmed, of course, as mil- 
lions of other readers have been. A few hours after finishing 
the book, while sitting at his table, engaged in writing, the door, 
which was unbolted, flew open wide, and there stood Madame, 
dressed in pure white — the eyes nearly closed, and features pale 
and rigid, the outstretched hands reaching vaguely forward, after 
the manner of the somnambulist. 

She paused for a moment thus — while the whole meaning of 
the scene flashed through the mind of Manton in an instant ; and, 
although he felt a very great inclination to laugh, he restrained 
himself, and determined to encourage the thing, and see how 
far it would go. The new Sleep-Walker now advanced slowly 
towards him ; and as she crossed the room, a slight movement 
of her fingers beat the air before her, as if through the guidance 
of these magnetic poles her soul sought its centre of attraction ; 
with a slow, gliding movement she thus approached, until within 
a few inches of him, when her hand leaped, as the magnet does 
to the stone, to meet his, and then a certain painful rigidity that 
had marked her brow at first, was displaced and gave way to 
a serene expression of content, as if she had now found rest. 

That peculiar action of the muscles of the throat, as if in the 
effort to swallow, now followed immediately, and was sufficient 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


181 


intimation to Manton that she desired to speak. He accordingly 
asked her, solemnly — 

“ Why are you here ?” 

But there was evidently something of mockery in the tone in 
which this question was asked, for the Sleep-Walker or>Iy 
frowned and shook her head impatiently. Manton now changed 
his voice, and with real curiosity, proceeded. 

“ Speak : why have you come to me thus ? What would you 
say to me ?” 

After some four or five efforts to produce sound, she articu- 
lated — 

“ For your good.” 

“ Tell me then, w^hat is for my good ?” 

She again frowned and shook her head and muttered — 

“ You are naughty.” 

« Why ?” 

‘‘ You have no faith.” 

“ Faith in what ?” 

‘‘Faith in me — in my mission — in my truth.” 

“ I have faith in you— -tell me what is for my good. 

“ You must be more humble ; your pride and your suspicion 
will never let you be saved. You must have some hard lessons 
yet to bring you down — to humiliate you — to purify.” 

Here there w^as a long pause, when Manton, growing impa- 
tient, finally asked — 

“ Is this all you have to say to me ? Is this all you see now ?” 

‘No.” 

“ Well, what is it ?” 

After considerable hesitation, she at length said — 

“You do not treat me right! — you hold my life in your 
hands — ^yet you are cold — you do not come near me — you are 
leaving me to die !” 

Here then was another long pause. 

“ What more is there ?” at length asked Manton ; “ this is 
not all.” 


16 


182 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


This time the choking and hesitation, before pronouncing the 
words, seemed greater than ever; At length, however, out 
they came. 

“ They complain of you in Heaven, that you let me suffer — 
that you do not care for my necessities— that — that you do not 
— not — give me money now.” 

This was too much — Manton literally roared with scornful 
laughter, as he spurned herTrom him — 

‘‘ Ha ! ha ! ha ! here is illumination for you with a vengeance ! 
Alas ! poor Zschokke ! ‘ to what base uses do we come !’ The 
divine inspiration of the Sleep-Walker raising the wind! Vive 
la bagatelle ! Hurrah ! hurrah !” He fairly danced about the 
floor, in an ecstacy of enjoyment — the scene seemed to him so 
irresistibly ludicrous. 

During this time, the woman, who had staggered towards the 
bed, and fallen across it, lay perfectly immovable and white, 
without the change of a muscle, or the quiver of a nerve. 
Manton, however, paid no attention to her, and half an hour 
afterwards, taking his hat, left the room, without again approach- 
ing her. But what was his astonishment on returning, two 
hours afterwards, to meet the sobbing Elna, and the pale, 
troubled face of Moione, in the passage. Elna, at the sight of 
him, seemed wild with grief, and sprang, with her arms about 
his neck, screaming — 

“ Oh, mother is dead ! mother is dead ! My dear mother is 
dead!” 

“Why, Moione,” said Manton quickly, taking her hand, 
as he shook Elna off, “ what is the matter ? what is all this ?” 

“ She seems to be in a fit of some sort. We missed her, and 
after looking all over the house, found her lying on the bed in 
your room, without mCtion or breath. We have not been able 
to wake her since, and did not know what to do until you came.” 

“ Oh, come ! do come !” screamed the horrified Elna. “ Save 
my poor mother ! save her ! save her ! You must save her ! I 
shall die!” 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


183 


Manton, who immediately felt his conscience sting him, 
assured the girls that it was merely a mesmeric sleep, from which 
he would relieve her in a few minutes. He then rushed up- 
stairs, accompanied by them, and found her, indeed, in pre- 
cisely the same attitude and apparent condition in which he had 
left her. After a few of the usual reverse passes for removing 
the magnetic influence, she slowly opened her eyes, while the 
blood returned to her face. Starting up and staring about with 
a bewildered look, she uttered merely an exclamation -of surprise, 
and then, after rubbing her eyes, quickly asked the poor child, 
Elna, who had thrown herself sobbing wildly on her breast — 

‘‘ Why, you foolish girl, what’s the matter now ?” 

‘‘Mother, dear mother, we thought you were dead!” 

And now came an explanation, so far as the thoroughly re- 
pentant Manton was disposed to make it, of the scene we have 
just described; the amount of which was, that she had come 
into his room in a clairvoyant state, and, being called out sud- 
denly, he had left it for an hour or two, forgetting to make any 
explanation to the family, and without having relieved her, as 
he should have done, before going, by using the necessary 
reverse passes. 

The incredulity of Manton had never before received so 
severe a shock ; and it was a long time before his conscience 
would forgive him, for what now seemed his brutal suspicion. 
Alas, poor Manton I had he only possessed, for a little while 
after he left that room, the invisible cap of the “ Devil on two 
sticks,” he would have been most essentially enlightened as to 
something of the art and mystery of Clairvoyance. 

As soon as the front-door had slammed behind him, he would 
have seen that woman spring to her feet, and, with lips and 
whole frame quivering with rage, glide from the room, mutter- 
ing to herself; and when she entered her own room, which 
could be reached through an empty bath-room, he would have 
heard several low, peculiar raps upon the partition-wall which 
separated her own from the room of her daughter. These raps 


184 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


were repeated, at intervals, until a single tap at her door re- 
sponded, and in another moment the girl Elna glided in on tip- 
toe. The conference between them was carried on in a low^, 
rapid, business-like tone, while every half-minute the girl thrust 
her head from the window, to watch as for some one coming. 

After a few moments thus spent, the child left the room, with 
an intelligent nod, in answer to the repeated injunction not to 
leave the window of her own room until she saw him coming, 
far up the street — and then — ! 

After this, he would have seen the woman quietly seat herself 
at the table, after locking her door, and write a long letter; 
when, on hearing three low taps in succession, she sprang to 
her feet, rushed through the bath-room into the room of Man- 
ton, and threw herself acfoSs the bed, in the precise position in 
which he left her, and, after three or four violent retchings of the 
whole muscular system, her face collapsed — grew ashen- white — 
her lids drooped — her muscles became rigid, and she exhibited 
all the outward resemblances of suspended vitality. Then the 
wild Elna rushed in, accompanied by the deluded Moione, and, 
the moment she looked at the condition of the mother, burst 
into the most extravagant demonstrations of helpless grief ; 
w^hile Moione, with perfect presence of mind, sprinkled water 
upon the face and endeavored to restore animation. Soon the 
street door-bell rings with a peculiar energetic pull, and the 
frantic Elna at once exclaims, ‘‘Manton! dear Manton! he can 
save my mother ; let us run for him.” She seizes the hand of 
Moione, and — we know the rest! 

Shocking, ludicrous, and monstrous as all this may appear to 
the reader, from his point of view, its only effect upon Manton 
was necessarily to rebuke the feeling of harsh incredulity which 
w^as beginning to become so strong in him, with regard to this 
inexplicable woman. He was now more troubled and con- 
founded than he had ever been ; for it was impossible that a 
nature like his could ever have voluntarily suspected the un- 
imaginable trickery and collusion which we have traced in this 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


185 


scene ; while his common sense was too strong to be in any 
degree shaken by what was simply unexplained. His magna- 
nimity W'Ould not permit him to suspect the full degree of 
knavery, or his conscientiousness to run such risks, again, of 
doing grievous injustice, as it now seemed to him he had clearly 
done in this case. He felt it utterly impossible to treat these phe- 
nomena with entire disrespect hereafter, however little influence 
he might permit them to exert upon his fixed purposes and will. 


CHAPTER. XX. ^ 

SELECT SCENES CONTINUED. 

We have lost sight of the other characters in our narrative, 
and it is now time that we return to them. The reader will re- 
member, in the dark-eyed, sharp-tongued Jeannette of a past 
scene, the contrasted type of another class of adventuress, 
whose schemes seemed to have been rapidly culminating. Her 
success, indeed, seemed now to be absolutely assured ; the 
coveted conquest had been achieved — Edmond was daily at 
her feet. They were, as it was understood, soon to he publicly 
married. In the meanwhile, she occupied the best room in the 
house, and became daily more and more imperious and over- 
bearing towards the woman Marie, as she believed the time to 
be approaching when she would no longer need her services. 

In common with her type the w'orld over, she was. incredibly 
selfish and ungrateful, where she had ance fawned and cringed. 
This little weakness of arrogance she had begun to make some 
slight exhibitions of, even towards Edmond himself ; while, as 
for the w^oman Marie, she hectored her on all occasions with the 
pitiless volubility of a most caustic wit. In this, however, she 
made a most fatal mistake ; she little dreamed of the dark and 
16 "= 


186 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


terrible subtlety of the reptile she thus hourly trampled with her 
ruthless scorn. She, 'too, was doomed to feel the fearful pois m 
of the hidden sting she carried, and writhe beneath its hideous 
tortures. 

There had been a more than usually bitter scene betw^een 
them, in which Jeannette had loftily taunted her wuth the ab- 
jectness of the game she w^as now playing, in putting forward 
her own daughter, as the attraction, by which to hold Manton 
any longer near her. It was not that Madame Jeannette was so 
much shocked at any villany in the act itself, but that her lofty 
pride was revolted at the inconceivable meanness it displayed ; 
for, as among thieves and robbers, there is among adventuresses 
a certain esprit du corps ^ — and the haughty Jeannette aspired to 
be a sort of banditti chieftalness in sentiment, and w^as really a 
person of refined cultivation, so far as mere intellect was con- 
cerned, — it is little wmnder, that at such a time of unbounded 
confidence in the security of her own position, and independ- 
ence, as she supposed, of any farther aid from the woman, that 
she should have given w^ay to a natural feeling of disgust and 
abhorrence, in a moment of irritation. But that taunt proved 
to her the most deadly error of her life. 

The woman, who feared her presence mortally, left the room 
hurriedly and in silence, shivering in an ague-fit of rage. In 
another morxient she left the house, without speaking a w^ord to 
any one. Indeed, she seemed incapable of speaking. Her eyes 
looked bloodshot and hideously awry ; the veins of her face 
swollen as if to bursting, and the skin absolutely livid. 

It w^as a long w^alk she had set out upon, and gradually the 
headlong rapidity, of her gait subsided into a more measured 
tread. Her face became pale, as it had before suffused, and a 
sort of ghastly calmness succeeded. At length, in White Street, 
she rang the bell of an old-fashioned, but respectable-looking 
mansion, and shot past the servant in the passage, when, instead 
of turning into the parlor, she hurried up-stairs to the chamber 
of the lady. 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


18T 

A somewhat masculine voice answered her tap, and she passed 
in. A woman of stout symmetrical figure, imperious bearing, 
whose somewhat coarse features were relieved by the animal 
splendor of her large black eyes, the luxuriance of her jetty hair, 
and voluptuous embonpoint of person, greeted her in a short, 
abrupt style, as she looked up with a cold glance from some lace- 
work over which she was bending. 

“ What is it, Marie } You look flurried.” 

“ No, no,” said she, throwing off her bonnet and sinking into 
a chair. “ I ’m only tired ! It ’s a long walk from my place 
here ; and then it is very hot to-day. But, Eugenie,” she said 
abruptly, changing her tone, ‘‘I came this morning to tell you 
about Edmond.” 

“ What of him ?” said the othei^harply, turning full upon 
her. 

‘‘ Dear Eugenie, the fact is, I could not restrain myself 
longer — I should not be acting truly by you or him, if I did so. 
You know^ you love him still.” 

The face of the French- worn an flushed slightly; her head was 
thrown back with a haughty curve of the neck. 

“ Ah, no,” said the woman, interrupting her quickly as she 
was about to speak. 

“No nonsense, Eugenie; you remember that proud as you 
are, you loved him well enough to risk the loss of your social 
position for him. You never loved any one as well since, and 
never will again ; and I know that he loves you, and you only, 
to this hour. It was your pride caused ther separation, it is your 
pride that has reduced him so low as to become, in sheer de- 
spair, the victim of such a sapless, bodiless, dry and sharp- 
set speculator, as this Jeannette ! Why, would you believe 
it, she has tormented him at last into a promise to marry her!” 

“ What !” said the other, springing to her feet ; “ what ! marry 
that starvling! Edmond marry that pauper adventuress, after 
having loved me ! Pshaw ! Marie, you are mistaken. He only 
tells her this to get rid of her importunities. He’s trifling with 


188 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


her : he’s not in earnest-r-he can’t be— he’s too proud : and be- 
sides, his father would disinherit him !” 

“ Sit down and keep cool, Eugenie. I am not mistaken ; so 
far from it, that every day he comes to me, grievously bewailing 
his hard fate, in having so far committed himself to Jeannette, 
whom he curses, while he mourns over this obdurate pride of 
yours, in refusing to see him again. He says if he could only 
see you once more he would be strong enough to break with 
Jeannette forever. I’ve shown him how he could easily buy her 
off, in case of reconciliation with you — that-her object, from the 
first, had been simply money, and the eclat of the position it 
would give her abroad — -und that when she had become con- 
vinced that a separation must take place, she w^ould soon be 
brought to compromise helPclairas. Beside, the marriage is im- 
possible ; I have seen his father and his brother, and have given 
them some seasonable hints in regard to her; and the testy old 
man now sw’ears that he will disinherit him, if he dares to marry 
w^hat he considers to be little better than a common adven- 
turess. And the brother, whom you know is the most influ- 
ential of the tw^o with the old man, is equally violent about it. 
So you see, my dear Eugenie, I have been w’orking for you 
faithfully all the while, while you considered me as co-operating 
with Jeannette.” 

‘‘ Yes,” said the other, who had resumed her seat quite 
calmly, “ I dare say I did you injustice, for I had conceived all 
the time, that it was through you that this affair, between Jean- 
nette and Edmond, had been brought about ; that you had had 
some interest in it you have not thought proper to explain to 
me ; and an explanation of which I have not chosen to ask of 
you. It is quite sufficient for me to know that you now desire 
to supplant Jeannette, and thereby undo your own work. Now^, 
if you choose to explain to me what the object you wish to ac- 
complish is, so that I can understand your motive, then, per- 
haps, we may come together in this matter — for I know you, 
Marie, that you never do things without a motive for yourself. 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


189 


Come, out with it ! Has Jeannette crossed your track in any way ? 
Has she foiled you ? In a word, do you hate her now ?” 

“ Of course I hate her now,” said the woman, or why this 
visit ? Why the delibe;'ate care I have taken to prepare the way 
to foil her dearest schemes ? She has outraged me beyond en- 
durance by her insolent superiority. She frightens, bullies and 
taunts me. She has insulted me beyond the possibility of wo- 
man’s forgiveness to another ! I hate her as deeply as I love 
revenge !” 

“ All this may be very true, Marie,” said the other, with a 
cool smile, but knowing you as I do, I should prefer to be in- 
formed specifically in what this insult consisted. Tell me what 
she said and did, give me all the circumstances in detail, and 
then I shall understand your motive and know how far we can 
act together !” 

The woman paused an instant as if in hesitation, her eye grew 
hideously askance once more, her forehead blazed, and her lips 
quivered, as glancing furtively around the room, with a stealthy 
movement, she glided closely to the side of the French- woman, 
and whispered in her ear, with purple lips, a rapid, eager com- 
munication for a few moments, and then sank back into her 
chair again, pale as death and seemingly exhausted. 

The French-woman bent her ear to listen, with her needle 
suspended in her hand, and as the other finished, a fierce, 
electric gleam darted from her eye, and with'untrembling fingers 
she finished her stitch, while she said in a low tone — 

“ That will do, Marie ; that’s enough to secure your faith. 
We will punish her. Edmond shall come back to my feet!” 

The results of the last scene may be rapidly traced. Very 
soon there commenced a series of mysterious calls by a dark- 
veiled lady, whom Manton was induced to suppose was a patient 
who was desirous to retain her incognito. She came and went 
always at unusual hours, and though a vague suspicion once or 
twice forced itself upon his mind that there was something un- 


190 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


usual going on, yet in his pre-occupation it created but little 
attention. But we, who have undertaken from the first to be 
somewhat closer and mor? widely-awakened observers than he, 
can see something more significant than met his eye in all this. 

An accidental meeting in one of the rooms of the house soon 
occurred between Edmond and Eugenie, upon the privacy of 
which we are not disposed to intrude. Let the consequences 
suffice. 

In a few weeks the imperious tone of Jeannette, who, too, 
had been kept entirely ignorant of -wffiat was going on, was 
lowered, though the covert and sardonic vindictiveness of her 
wit had clearly lost nothing of its directness and ferocity even ; 
because, as she daily became less exultant, the moroseness of 
her temper increased. 

It would be anything but a pleasant picture to unveil the har- 
rowing struggles of such a woman to regain an ascendency, 
■which she felt was daily driven by some malign and invisible 
power beyond the breath of her heretofore ascendant will. She 
only felt its devastation amidst her towering hopes, and the 
moon-stone battlements of regal schemes that she had nourished 
in daring fancies. She only felt the shadow of desolation on 
her soul, but her vision was not strong enough to see the demon 
wing that threw it. 

She was passing through the valley and the shadow, yet knew 
not where to aim the lightning of her curse. She sank at last, 
bewildered, stunned, and utterly humiliated ; for she had crawled 
upon her very knees to Edmond to plead for mercy, but he was 
inexorable. The old passion had been restored to his life, and 
her proud, voluptuous rival held the sensual philosopher a 
prisoner, ‘‘ rescue or no rescue,” once more. 

For days and days after the tremendous realisation of her loss 
had been forced upon her, she lay upon her bed, tossing in dumb 
and tearless torture : then her concentrated madness took a new 
and sudden turn ; she shrieked and wailed, she cursed heaven, 
and earth, and men, and even Edmond, with the lurid curses 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


191 

of madness, while she kissed the hand and blessed the minister- 
ings of the soft-gliding genius of her ruin, who hung with a 
cunning science about her suffering bed. 

But Jeannette was clearly not the stuff to die of any one pas- 
sion less intense than her love of self. She came through at last, 
haggard and broken, and humble enough, but she received her 
pension nevertheless, and soon after sailed for England, leaving 
the field to her stronger rival, to whom Edmond was soon after- 
wards married. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

SELECT SCENES CONTINUED. 

We have frequently mentioned the eccentric Dr. Weasel in 
the course of this narrative. Another scene will enlighten the 
reader somewhat in regard to the yet undefined character of his 
relations towards the woman Marie. He had just entered her 
room ; and approaching with a quick, nervous step, he said to 
her in an irritated and squeaking voice — 

“ Marie Orne, I tell you I must have my money back again ! 
I did not give it to you, when I advanced it to get you started 
in business. You w^ere to have returned it to me, long since ! 
You have been doing well now for two years and more, and yet 
instead of returning the money I first advanced to you, you have 
been borrowing more, than double as much ! At this moment 
you have more than five hundred dollars belonging to me, of 
which you have never returned me a cent ! Yet I have been 
suffering for money, for months, and you know it ! You know 
I cannot receive remittances now, since the death of my grand- 
mother, till the settlement of our estate ! I am tired of this treat- 
ment, Madam ! I will have my money !” 

The Doctor, who had been walking hurriedly up and down 


192 


SPIKITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


the room during this speech, now paused abruptly before the 
woman, who had quietly continued her writing — 

“ Do you hear me ?” he said angrily, in a loud, sharp tone. 
“ Where is the money you have plundered me of?” 

The woman now looked up, staring at him with wide-open 
eyes, that expressed the most unutterable astonishment, while, 
at the same moment, a bland smile broke across her face, while 
she exclaimed in a low, sweet, reproachful voice — 

“ Why, Doctor E. Willamot Weasel ! What can you mean ? 
My dear friend — 7 plunder you? You forget yourself! Re- 
member what a feeble child you were — how sad, how sick, how 
despairing, when I took hold of you, as the tender nurse does 
the dying foundling at her door — ” 

“ I believe you had no door, till I gave you one I” interrupted 
the Doctor, while his sharp little eyes shot fire. 

‘‘ This were all very fine, if it were only true : I advanced 
you my money, not to pay you for curing me, which you have 
never accomplished, but that you might do good with it ; be- 
cause I believed in your mission to your sex I But I am not 
pleased with the use you- — ” 

‘‘ Does not that mission exist still ?” said the woman, with 
flushing brow, quickly interrupting him. “ Has not the number 
of my patients increased daily ? — including the first ladies of the 
land? Have not my lecture-classes become more full and 
widely-attended every season ? Have you not a thousand evi- 
dences, in the extent of my correspondence, that women are 
becoming awakened throughout the country ? What more do 
you ask ? Do you expect me to perform miracles ?” 

‘‘ No ! unless the expectation that you will deal honestly with 
those who have befriended you, be what you call a miracle. 
Come, I know what all this amounts to, perfectly ! I gave you 
my money, as you know I dedicate all that I have, in trust, for 
humanity ! You seemed to be laboring in common cause with 
myself, for the restoration of the Passional Harmonies ; and as 
you appeared to me capable of accomplishing much for the 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


193 


great cause, I felt that I had no right to withhold my aid from 
you when you needed it. I gave you my gold as freely as I 
would have given you a drink of water, when athirst. But you 
have not been just and true — you have used it selfishly — you 
have surrendered yourself exclusively to the cabalistic sphere ; 
your life is wasted in a series of ignoble plottings ; sensual in- 
trigues merely, in utter disregard of the harmonic relations. Do 
not interrupt me ! I have watched you closely ; I know this to 
be true ! Instead of elevating that noble soul, Manton, w^hom I 
thought, through you, to rescue from the dominion* of his appe- 
tites, and see set apart, with all his glorious powers, to the ex- 
alted priesthood of the Harmonies, you have steadily dragged 
him down from the beginning until now, when he is further 
removed than ever beyond our reach, and regards with contempt 
and disgust the very name of the system with which I had 
yearned to see him identified. You Jgive done this, and all for 
your own individual and unworthy ends, and have defeated one 
of my most treasured purposes !” 

“ This is false !” shrieked the woman, as, with flushed face, 
and with the aspect of a roused tigress, she sprang to her feet, 
and placed herself directly across the track of the excited 
Doctor. 

“You lie in your teeth, you ingrate! It is not so! His 
own beastly passions have degraded him, in spite of me ! Just 
as I have failed to make a man out of you^ through your own 
weakness ! For years I have patiently wrestled with your down- 
ward tendencies, in the hope you, too, might be redeemed — 
might be sa-a-ved from yourself! The money that you have 
given me, I have earned twice over again, in these vain and 
exhausting struggles to bring you back to the true health of 
unity with God through nature ! Your childish aberrations and 
eccentricities have baffled all my spiritual strength ! The proof 
of it is, that you dare to taunt me in this way ! I see that you 
are incorrigible ! You may go ! Go from me forever! lam 
hopeless ! I will no longer expend myself upon you ! Your 
17 


194 SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 

money I shall Iceep until it is my convenience to restore it, if 
ever! It is my due, and you may recover it if you can; I 
own nothing here. The furniture of this house has all been 
loaned me. Seize it, if you dare ! Go, I say ! Go ! Leave 
my house instantly 1” 

And she stamped her foot, and, waving her hand in melo- 
dramatic fashion towards the door, repeated the imperative 
order to “ begone !” 

We have mentioned, that the Doctor was a small man, and 
the w’oman was, no doubt, fully conscious of her physical supe- 
riority over him, before her coward and reptile nature could 
have dared to have assumed such a tone. But she had mis- 
taken the metal with which she h,ad to deal. 

The Doctor had listened to this tirade with a cold, sardonic 
smile upon his face, while his keen little eyes fairly snapped 
with scintillating fury. ^ 

‘‘ You are a fool!” said he, in a low, smooth tone, “ as well 
as a thief and an impostor! I’ll put you in the Tombs to- 
morrow, if you do not at once lower your tone ! And what is 
more, I will expose your practices, fully and publicly. I will 
swear to the false pretences by w^hich you have swindled me 
out of my money. I will swear that you have made overtures 
to me, time after time, as an equivalent for the money you are 
dragging from me, to sell to me the chaste and gentle Moione, 
w’hose unprotected poverty you have dared to think you could 
traffic in! I will swear, too, that at one time you did not 
scruple to suggest, by indirection, one much nearer to you ; the 
true scope of which suggestion, however artfully disguised, the 
world wnll readily comprehend. Furthermore, I can now un- 
derstand, perfectly, the secret of all those physiological pheno- 
mena, by which you have managed to delude and degrade 
Manton, not forgetting the disgusting fact, which has become 
too apparent to me, that you are endeavoring to play off Elna 
upon him, and, through his generous susceptibilities, to retain 
him within the reach of your damnable arts ! You are becoming 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


195 


aware that he, too, is beginning to see through them, and 
through you. *I have never spoken .a word, for I wished him to 
work out the problem himself! I will secure even him from 
your clutches !” * 

The woman made no attempt to reply, fter face became, of 
a sudden, as white and rigic^ as death, and, .muttering a few 
choked and guttural sounds, she pitched forward suddenly, like 
a falling statue, against the bosom of the irritated Doctor Wea- 
sel ; who, not a little shocked by the unexpected concussion, 
staggered backwards, for an instant, in the '^utmost confusion, 
while her form fell upon the shaken floor. He recovered his 
coolness, however, in another moment, and merely muttered, as 
he left the room — 

“Pah! nonsense! The old trick — she’s purely in the sub- 
versive sphere — ^and I can make nothing of her in the Passional 
Harmonies ! We require purity and singleness of purpose. She 
may go to the dogs, hereafter, for me.” 


196 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

FURTHER REVELATIONS. 

Another year had now passed, which, although it found 
Manton not entirely released from his thrall, had yet left him a 
calmer and a stronger man. One by one the manacles had fallen 
off, unconsciously to himself. Hope was slowly filling his dark- 
ened life once more with visions of an emancipated future, and 
he now even dared to smile in dreams. 

Whence^ came these fairy visitors ? Ah, he did not understand 
yet, clearly, in his own heart. He only felt and welcomed them, 
fresh-comers from he knew not what far Eden of God’s minis- 
ters of grace. He did not question them — it was joy enough 
to have had them come down to him in his hell. Perhaps they 
were but airy counterparts of those sweet children he had watch- 
ed over with such fostering tenderness. 

But now at once a shadow fell upon his dream. Moione, the 
wise, the resolute, and the gentle, seemed all at once to droop, 
to become wavering and shy, while Elna grew more conscious 
in her impish grace, and more exultant, more capriciously ten- 
der, more caressingly electrical. Manton could not but observe 
that although Moione shrank from him now, she held her pencil 
with a heavy hand, and worked with a hopeless carelessness, 
while her lids drooped low and trembled often with a furtive 
moisture. 

Another might have observed what he could not see, how at 
such times the eyes of Elna lit with glistening joy, and how^ her 
spirit mounted in rollicking ecstacies ; how she danced and sang 
like some mad elf; or else her drawing-sheet was spoiled* while 
her%pencil went riot over it, in all fantastic drolleries of form, 
mocking characters, of every sentiment, and worst of all that 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 197 

she mocked Moione, too, and made him see her heavy brow, 
and covertly suggested painful questions'. 

Manton would sometimes see enough of this to startle him 
gravely, and make him question his own heart, long and pain- 
fully. Elna seemed to wateh these moods and dread them, and 
would break in upon them with some wild antic or pouting 
caress. 

Suddenly Moione went away, without any other explanation 
than that she should return to her mother in New England. The 
thing was done in a cold and resolute way that left no room for 
explanation. She had been here — she was gone ; and strangely 
enough it was not until now that Manton realised how much of 
light there had been from her presence. Deep shade filled the 
places which had known her once, and it seemed as if his vision 
had been filmed — as if the shadow of that shade filled Heaven 
and darkened earth before him. He could not have explained 
why this was so. It was a voiceless consciousness, through 
which he felt a sense most indescribable, that made him first 
aware of a great want. It seemed as if the moon and stars 
were gone, with their calm inspirations of repose, their pure and 
holy beamings, and that their f)lace about him had been usurped 
by a red and sultry light, more garish than perpetual day, and 
clouded in brazen unnatural splendors, too thick for those star- 
pencillings to break through, or that chaste moon to overcome. 

As the weeping Elna clung about him now, he shuddered 
while he felt that strange, new thrillings crept along his veins. 
Why had he not felt this before, when Moione was beside 
them ? Was he again given over to the evil one } -and had the 
white dove again been banished from his bosom } These vague 
forebodings could never be entirely- banished from the heart of 
Manton, although the lavish tenderness of Elna, who, by some 
strange instinct, seemed aware of the struggle, the shadow and 
the cause, and wrought eagerly to dispel them. 

Elna was no longer a child, if, in reality, she ever had 
been since Manton had known her. She became daily more 
17 * 


198 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


and more lovely in his eyes, which soon grew again accustomed 
to the unnatural atmosphere surrounding him, though he yearned 
often for the calmer and the clearer sky he had lost ; yet she 
gave him little .time to think of the past. The preternatural 
activity into which her brain had been roused gave him full em- 
ployment in guiding its eccentric energies. And then the bud 
had begun to unfold its petals, as well as give out its aroma. 
Her sick and wilted frame seemed to have become suddenly 
inspired with a tender and voluptuous sensuousness, which filled 
out her graceful limbs in rounded, bounding vigor, and swelled 
her fine bust with its elastic tension, and lit and deepened her 
keen eyes with most lustrous and magnetic fires. 

He could not dream long among such conditions. One 
morning, as he sat beside her at her drawing, she looked up 
suddenly into his face, and with bewitching naivete remarked — 

‘‘ This is my birthday — do you know how old I am 

“ No, I never thought.” 

‘‘ Well, I am seventeen to-day.” 

“Seventeen! Great God! is it possible?” And Manton 
bowed his face, covering it with his hands, and for a long time 
spoke not a word, though his frame trembled. That magical 
word, “ seventeen,” had revealed every thing to himself. He 
had as yet always called her by the affectionate baby-name of 
“ Sis.” He had thought of her only as a child ; for through these 
four weary years he had kept no note of time. He supposed, up 
to this moment, that he had been feeling towards her, too, as to- 
wards a child— the same saddened, persecuted child which had 
first attracted his sympathies by her mournful expression of con- 
stant suffering. He had never once thought before that any 
change had taken place in their relations ; he had still fondled 
her as a spoiled and petted playmate; he still attributed the 
strange thrills her touch had lately produced in him to a thou- 
sand other and innocent causes beside the real. He had not 
dreamed of passion ; he had only learned to dearly love her, as 
he thought, because she had been developed beneath his hand, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


199 


and seemed, in some senses, almost a creation of his own — a 
sort of feminine elaboration of the thought of Frankenstein 
within him — the creature of his own darinjr mind and indomi- 
table will. Seventeen! seventeen! Now the whole truth was 
flooded into his consciousness. She was no longer a child — 
she was a woman. And he felt that he had indeed loved her 
as a woman, while recognising her as a gay pet, a play- 
thing. He now understood how deep, how pure, was the un- 
utterable fondness that had grown thus unconsciously into his 
life, for her, and how monstrous had been the relations into 
which the mother strove to drag and hold him. 

With the first flash of this conviction of his real feeling to- 
wards Elna, came the purpose, as stern as it w^as irrevocable. 
He lifted his head and turned towards the young girl, with 
moistened eyelids, and said to her solemnly, and with trembling 
lips — 

‘‘ Sis ! — Elna, do you know that you are no longer a child ? 
that you are now a woman ?” 

The blood sprang to her forehead, and,' with dowmcast eyes, 
she said, in a faint voice — 

“ I know I’m seventeen torday.” 

“ Do you know, too, Elna, that w^e cannot continue to be to 
each other that we have been 

<< Why, can’t you be my brother still said she, looking up 
quickly, as if astonished. 

“ Because you are a woman, dear ; and I realise now, for the 
first time, that I love you as a woman.” 

Her dilated eyes glistened, for a moment, with a strange ex 
pression of exultation, and, in another instant, she threw her 
arms about the neck of Manton, and burst into the wildest 
expressions of mingled ecstacy and grief, in the midst of which 
she sobbed out frequently. 

‘‘ My mother ! my poor mother ! what will she do ? She will 
never consent to this — it will kill her.” 

Elna,” said Manton, calmly, disengaging her clasped hands 


200 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


from about his neck, “ your mother is an evil woman ; I know, 
and you know, something of her terrible passions. But she 
shall submit to this ; my will is'her fate — she cannot escape me, 
now that it is thoroughly aroused. She must bear it — she shall 
bear it, if it kills her. I shall hold no middle ground ; and she 
dare not stand before me, or openly cross my track. This ex- 
piation is due from her to me. She has striven to hideously 
wrong me, and wrong you, and she shall now reap the conse- 
quences. I shall hold no terms with her ; and you must make 
your choice now, calmly, between us, for ever! I have not 
guarded you thus for years, with sleepless vigilance, against 
her demonising influence, to have you fall back at once into her 
talons. I know it is a fearful thing to ask a child to do — to 
sunder all instinctive ties, and go apart into the house of 
strangers ; but w^here implacable evil dwells, purity must look 
to be grieved in every contact, and there are no human ties suf- 
ficiently sacred to justify pollution of soul and body in continu- 
ing such contacts. I love you, Elna — I feel it now — I have 
loved you long, unconsciously; I would make you my true and 
honored wife, within another year — say the birthnight eve of 
eighteen. But mark me, you must be separate from this horrid 
mother. Elna,rwhich do you choose?” 

She threw herself hysterically upon his breast, sobbing — 

“ You ! — you ! Ah, my poor mother ! I see it all ! there is 
no choice ! Yours ! I am yours ! — for ever yours ! She is good 
to me sometimes; but I know she is bad — you must shield 
me from her. But we will not go aw^ay at once — it would kill 
her. Oh, my poor mother! my dear mother! this is hard!” 
and she shuddered, as she clasped him more closely in her 
arms, and sobbed yet more wildly still. 

Manton spoke in tender soothing to the gentle trembler, who 
continued, amidst bursts of hysteric laughter, and smiles of 
stormy joy, to moan — “Poor mother! how will she bear it?” 

Manton, at length, gently released himself from her caress, 
and placing her head upon the cushion of the sofa, whispered, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


201 


‘‘Be calm, Elna! She must bear it — she will bear it; it is a 
righteous retribution, that has overtaken her at last. I go now’ 
to tell her every thing. Promise me to be quiet, and wait till I 
return. She shall' know her doom, in this same sacred hour in 
which I have learned to know myself and you.” 

She buried her face in her hands and shivered as he turned 
away. 

He mounted the stairs with calm, unhurried step, and, tap- 
ping at the door of the w’oman’s room, it was opened instantly, 
and she met him on the threshold. Her eyes sought his as he 
entered, with a strange and troubled glare of inquiry. His 
brow was fixed, and all his features seemed just cast in iron. 
She reached out her hand to him, with a vague, quick gesture ; 
but he did not accept it. He stood up before her, erect, rigid, 
and impassive. Her eye grew wilder, and a yet more furtive 
and startled expression glanced across her face, as she gasped 
out feebly — 

“ What now ! has it come ?” 

“ Yes !” answered Manton, with a cold, ringing, and metallic 
tone ; “it has corne^ w’oman ! The same curse that your devil- 
ish arts brought upon poor Jeannette, has now come home to 
roost. We are for ever severed, and, on no pretence or artifice, 
shall you ever again come' near me. Know you, wmman, that 
I love your child wuth an honest love — have come to a realisation 
of the fact, and told her so.” 

She reeled and staggered backwards, shrieking — 

“ Ah ! ah ! it has come at last ! I felt it would be so !” 

There was something in her gait and manner so like stunned 
madness, that Manton involuntarily sprang forward, to catch her 
wavering form in his arms. She thrust aside his clasp, and, 
staggering tow’ards the bed, fell across it — not in a swoon, not 
in a bleeding-fit, but in a paroxysm of weeping ; in which the 
flood-gates of long years seemed suddenly opened. There was 
no word, no sob, no gesture of impatience, but her eyes ran 
always a clear flood of silent tears 


202 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


Ha ! ha ! Etherial ! has it come to thee at last ? Is it thou that 
must in turn be s-a-v-e-d ? Where now thy disguises ? Where 
thy unnatural triumphs ? O, woman ! art thou woman, Etherial? 

To Manton, the phenomenon seemed more moving and inex- 
plicable than any we have yet described. She did not sleep, 
but always the tears poured forth ; and for twenty-four hours she 
did not change her posture, or utter any word, but these, which 
sent a chill shiver through the frame of Manton, as he heard 
them — 

“ She will serve you so, too !” 

Those words he could never forget. It was a weary 
watching beside that bed, that Manton had to pass through 
before the incessant flow of tears began to be checked, and 
the woman to recover something of her power of speech, at 
intervals. 

The first thing now spoken was, “I must be content. It can- 
not be escaped ! She must be yours, if you can hold her 

A fearful “ i/*’’ was that suggested to Manton ; but he was 
too happy after all this solemn travail, to notice its significance — 

“ I shall try to reconcile myself to see you both made happy ; 
while I shall walk aside in the cold isolation of my duties to my 
mission among women.” 

Manton, who had expected a much more sultry and formida- 
ble climax to this critical scene, felt his heart bound with the 
sense of relief, as, when after all this exhausting watch over that 
dumb and sleepless flow of tears, the calm and unexpected 
philosophy of this conclusion came to his consolation. He had 
anticipated a frantic, obstinate collision ; perhaps as savage as 
it might prove tragical. And his grateful surprise may be con- 
ceived at the result. 

So soon as this result had been attained, he hastened to im- 
part the news to Elna, whose approach to her mother, while in 
this condition, had been studiously guarded against by Manton. 
When he saw her, now, in her own room, to which he eagerly 
hastened, she sprang about his neck, exclaiming — 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


203 


“ Will she bear it ? Can she live ?” 

‘‘ My darling, she has passed through a terrible struggle, but 
she has now awakened to a recognition of what is, and has 
been, and must continue to be, the falsehood of her purposed 
relation to me.” 

‘‘Ah!” exclaimed the young girl rapturously, clasping his 
neck still closer — “ Now I may dare to love you as much as I 
please I” 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

ANOTHER INTRIGUE. 

With all the apparent amount of suffering which we have 
attempted to describe above, Manton was no little astonished, 
not only at the promptness and completeness of the recovery of 
the woman Marie, but at the shortness Cf the time which she 
permitted to elapse before he found her again engaged deep m 
a bold and characteristic intrigue. 

He had immediately determined that Elna should be sepa- 
rated from him until the time of the proposed marriage had ap- 
proached. While she was to be sent to New England to prose- 
cute her studies under the charge of an artist friend, he himself 
proposed to spend the greater part of the year in the northern 
mountains, hunting, fishing and exploring. 

But before this prudent and proper step could be taken, a 
week or so of preparation became necessary. It was only a 
w^eek since the woman^ had risen from her bed, a showery 
Niobe, as we have seen, when Manton entered the house one 
morning at an hour when he was not expected, he met the wo- 
man gliding hastily through a passage, with one of the sleeves 
of her dress gone. The meaning of this sign at once flashed 
across him, for he remembered to have seen that fair and beau- 


204 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


tiful arm, by skilful accident, exposed to his own gaze during 
her first attenipts at diverting and exciting his passions, and he 
shrewdly conceived that there must be some new victim on 
hand, even already. 

“Hat” said he maliciously, as she was hurrying past. 
“ Why, what’s become of your sleeve this morning?” 

The woman flushed very red, and her eye turned obliquely 
upon him as she muttered confusedly — 

“ I — I’ve lost it!” 

“Ah, well, come ! Let us look for it ! Let us find it ! The 
morning is too cold ! I will help you ! I fear you will suffer 1” 

“ No, no, never mind I I will find it myself!” 

“But I insist! We must find it at once, before you take 
cold ! Come, we will look in the parlor !” And he made a 
movement of his outstretched hand as if to open the door. 

She clutched him nervously, saying in a low whisper — 

“ Don’t go in there, I have a visitor !” 

But as Manton only smiled at this and showed no disposition 
to desist, she continued in an imploring voice — 

“ Don’t go in ! Mr. Narcissus, the editor, is there ! I will 
get the sleeve and put it on immediately ! Don’t disturb us 
now ; I am just reading to him the MS. of my new novel, which 
I hope he will undertake to publish in his paper !” 

“Well,” said Manton, quietly stepping back, “it must be 
confessed you are prompt in finding alternatives ! I wish you 
success in your new publishing enterprise ! And I suppose this 
bare arm is to have nothing to do with his anticipated commen- 
tory upon your text!” 

Manton turned away with a light laugh, but the look which 
was sent after him would have chilled his very soul could he 
have met it. His sneering conjecture was only too true. She 
had already fastened upon a new victim. But for once it 
turned out that it was “ file cut file.” She had at last met her 
equal in all that was detestable — her peer in baseness, and only 
an under-graduate to her in cunning. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 205 

She had selected him as she did all her victims, with reference 
to social and pecuniary position. He was at the time a co- 
editor and ostensible part-owner of one of the most brilliant and 
successful w^eekly papers of New York. She had always aspired 
to command an ‘‘organ.” And anything in that line, from a 
review down to a thumb-paper, to her restless ambition, w^as 
better than nothing. For by a process more hideous to the 
world than anomalous in fact, she had come to reconcile any 
degree of private intrigue, by balancing it with the value of ab- 
stract teachings for the public good, under that liberal postulate 
of the school to which she belonged, that the end justifies the 
means. 

In setting herself down for a regular siege before this news- 
paper establishment, she had first in her eye, all three of the 
associate owners. It was a matter of entire indifference to her, 
through which she succeeded in obtaining an entrance to its 
columns, which might lead to her control of the future tone of 
the paper. She opened the investment in the usual form ; first, 
by visiting them alone, in their offices; then by bombarding 
them, from the distance of her own writing-table, with a con- 
stant hail of those snow-white missives, with the sugared con- 
tents of which w'e have before been made acquainted. 

They were each privately and successively pronounced in 
their own ears, and under seal of those crow-quilled envelopes, 
to be “ naughty boys,” whose proud and wilful natures were 
driving them headlong to ruin — to be sons of genius, who only 
required to be saved from themselves and their, own vices, by 
her, to become the illustrious reformers of the age ! One of 
them smoked too much — was making a “chimney of his nose,” 
through which he was exhaling spiritual mightiness, that might 
equalise him with the cherubim, if only free ! But this unhap- 
pily did not tell ; the shrew^d and w^ary business-man, who knew 
more about coppers than cherubim, and was by no means con- 
scious of the spiritual prowess she so pathetically attributed to 
18 


206 


SPIRITUAL- VAMPIRISM. 


him, smoked” her, or her motive at least, and threw the dainty 
correspondence aside, with a jeering laugh. 

The other, who was really chief editor, and a handsome and 
talented fellow, might not have got off so well, had he not been 
pre-occiipied, and predisposed to bestow the exalted attri- 
butes which she had discovered in him, in another direction. 
He was duly grateful to her, however, for the discover}^ that he 
was a child of genius ; and, though a little disposed to be sus- 
picious, could not, for some time, restrain the expression of his 
delight at having met with a lady possessing such unquestion- 
able and extraordinary discrimination. 

He was a jovial and generous fellow, though very shrewd and 
suspicious withal. She w^as not quite aware of the last two 
attributes, and therefore expected a gr^at deal from him, as he 
proverbially drank too much. She therefore opened her bat- 
teries mercilessly upon this weakness, which, as she affirmed, 
combined with the horrible practice of chewing to excess, was 
demonising an “ Archangel! Dragging down the loftiest spirit 
of his age! A spirit that might guide the destinies of the 
human race, and rule it, whether for evil or for good.” She 
particularly desired his salvation. She prayed for it, day 
and night! She had a spiritual monition that he could 
be saved ; and the fact was, he would be saved, if he would 
only listen to her counsel! Indeed, she might guarantee he 
should be saved, if he would only give up his poisons, and 
dedicate the columns of his paper to the great cause of pro- 
gressive hygiene and popular physiology. In a word, the fact 
was, he must be saved, whether he wanted to be or not ! 

But the trouble was, our editor was a person who would do 
nothing on compulsion. And when he found that such a pow- 
erful edict had gone forth, that he must be saved, he swore, in 
his benighted obstinacy, that he would be if he would ! 

This led, through his spleen, to an explanation between him- 
self and the business-man of the firm, and what was their mu- 
tual astonishment, on privately comparing “notes,” to find that 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 207 

one was absolutely a ‘‘Cherubim,’’ and the other an “Arch- 
angel !” They looked at each other with a blank stare of sur- 
prise. The tawney, lean, angular, iron-jawed face of the busi- 
ness-man suggested anything but the plump and dimpled out- 
lines of that prolific progeny of winged infants, which Raphael 
has rendered so illustrious. While, in contrast, the features of 
the young editor were remarkable for their plump and child- 
like freshness. 

“Why!” shouted the business-man, with a tremendous 
guffaw, “there’s a great mistake here — she has clearly mis- 
directed the notes. You should be the cherub !” 

The breath of a simultaneous roar of laughter dissipated all 
her fine-spun web, in these two directions at least. She was 
more successful, how^ever, with the third party. 

Manton had been deceived, egregiously, in regard to this 
man’s past history, or he would never have permitted him to 
pass the threshold of the house where he lived. He had 
known him only as ostensibly associate editor of a highly- 
respectable paper, and therefore had not felt himself called upon 
to interfere in any way. Although he had, as we have per- 
ceived, early indications of his having become a frequent visiter 
at the house. 

To have gone any higher in her classification of him than she 
had already gone in that of his associates, would have puzzled 
any less versatile genius than hers. But as cherubim and arch- 
angel had already been used up, she placed him among the 
“ principalities and powers in heavenly places,” and there he 
decided to stick. It was certainly time for him to be pleased 
with elevation of some sort, for, as it turned out afterwards, 
when his history became better understood by Mantori, he was 
one of those slugs, or barnacles of the press, that cling about 
and slime the keels of every noble and thought-freighted bark. 
From the precarious and eminently honourable occupation of 
writing obscene books for private circulation, “ getting up” 
quack advertisements, interpolating the pages of Paul De Kock 


208 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


with smearings of darker filth than ever his mousing vision had 
yet discovered in the sinks and gutters of Paris, he had gra- 
dually risen, through his facile availability, to the sub rosa 
respectability of a well-paid “sub” in a respectable office — I 
say sub rosa, for it seems to have been well understood, in New 
York, that the appearance of his name, at the head of the 
columns of any paper, would be sufficient to damn it, outright, 
so linked had it become with sneaking infamy of every sort. 

However, this “child of genius” and Madame progressed 
bravely towards a mutual understanding ; and billets-doux flew 
between them thick as snow-flakes. As for their contents, the 
reader is, by this time, pretty well prepared to conjecture. In- 
terviews, from weekly to semi-weekly, crowded fast upon each 
other’s heels ; until, at last, Manton began to perceive that, not 
only was the sleeve lost every day, but that the new novel, like 
the pious labor of the needle of Penelope, “ grew with its 
growth.” 

About this time, however, it came to his knowledge, that this 
highly respectable literary personage, Mr. Narcissus, had been 
as notoriously abject in his private relations as he had been in 
those to the press. However, as he had determined to drag 
Elna from beneath the clutches of her mother, and to sever all 
remote, or even possible connection between them, he did not 
feel himself called upon to do more than announce the fact to 
Madame that the fellow was even now an infamous stipendiary 
to a party no less infamous than himself, who had privately fur- 
nished him, out of her ill-gotten gains, the money to buy his 
share in the weekly paper she was so ambitious of controlling, 
through him. As he had now to expect, she received the news 
with the most refreshing coolness, and merely remarked, that it 
w^as no fault of hers that this bad woman had loved Mr. Nar- 
cissus; that he possessed great talent in affairs; could be made 
of much use in the cause of human progress and advancement 
— in a word, deserved to be saved, and to save him she meant. 
She should rescue him from such gross and debasing associa- 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


209 


tions, and give to his astonishing energies a nobler bent ; that 
his future life, under her inspiration and guidance, should be 
made to atone for the past. 

This logic seemed so very conclusive and characteristic, that 
Manton made no reply, but a shudder, at the thought of that 
saving process, to which, despicable as he was, a new victim 
w^as to be subjected. But it was no part of his plan to divert 
her from her purpose ; for he wished, by all means, to see her 
active and dangerous energies employed in any direction, save 
that of the subversion and counteraction of his own desisfn in 
regard to her daughter. 

Elna, in a few days after, was sent to New England, with the 
understanding between Manton and herself, that she would by 
no means consent to return to her mother, until he himself 
should come back from his tour, and should send for her. He 
did not dare to trust her for an hour beneath the accursed 
shadow of this domestic Upas, that had given her birth ; and 
more particularly did he dread the hideous combination of in- 
fluences which were likely now to be brought to bear upon her, 
as Madam had openly announced her intention, since she 
had obtained a divorce from her former husband, to marry the 
delectable Narcissus. 

We may as well dispose of this affair at once, by remarking, 
that in a few months afterward she did marry him ; that the un- 
fortunate woman, who had heretofore so long lived with and 
loved Narcissus, instantly withdrew the support which her ill- 
gotten gains furnished ; and that, asserting her right to the share 
which he had pretended to own in the property of the paper, 
and disclosing the whole of his infamy to his former partners, 
the cherubim and archangel indignantly kicked him out of 
doors, and at once toppled about the astonished ears of Madame 
all her castles in the air reared, with regard to “ controlling a 
powerful organ.’’ 

But Madame, as we have perceived, was possessed of one 
of those elastic natures which alwavs rebound from collisions, 
18 * 


210 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


or which, in a word, “ never say die so that, instead of being 
discouraged by this untoward conclusion of her ambitious 
schemes, she set herself to work forthwith to make the best of a 
bad bargain ; and, as she had already exhibited her passion for 
professional spouses, in immediately converting her first and 
dear Ebenezer, into an M. D., she could not do less than make 
a Doctor out of her beloved Narcissus. 

It did not matter to her that both of them were ludicrously 
ignorant — that neither of them had probably ever read a book 
clear through in their lives ; parchments were dog-cheap in New 
York, and could be had any day for an equivalent in hard coin. 
She accordingly ‘‘put him through;” and in something less 
than three months, one more legalised murderer was turned 
loose upon society, under the cabalistic aegis of M. D. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

REANIMATION. 

Amidst the green and savage solitude of pine-haired hills, 
wild-bounding streams, and islet-fretted lakes, asleep, ’twixt 
gleam and shadow, where the bellowing moose still roused the 
echoes, and the light deer whistled to the brown bear’s growl, 
and the trout leaped, flashing from its clear, still home, Manton 
renewed his life once more, in refreshing communion with 
nature. 

It was not till now that he realised how terribly he had 
suffered during his long and hideous bondage. His physical 
health had been shockingly impaired ; the elasticity of his con- 
stitution seemed to be gone forever ; but it was only in the pre- 
sence of Nature, with whom there are no disguises, that he could 
first comprehend, in all its ghastliness, the mental and spiritual 
deterioration that had gradually supervened. He scarcely knew 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


211 


himself, now that he had found his way back to the only stan- 
dard of comparison. He was profoundly humiliated, but not 
utterly despairing. 

He felt his chest already beginning to play more freely, and 
a deadly sense, as if a thousand years of suffocating oppression 
had lain upon his lungs, was beginning to be dissipated before the 
pure air of the mountains, and the exciting pre-occupations of 
angling and the chase, in the rough wilderness-life he now led ; 
and beside, there was the image of that wizard child, that had 
so grown in beauty beneath his hand, that sat forever in his 
heart, glowing and fair, to warm it with a new life of hope. 
How studiously his fancy exalted her. Each fortnight brought 
him a package of her daily letters ; and though in spite of his 
isolation, and his idealising enthusiasm, as he eagerly read and 
re-read them all a thousand times, and carried them near his 
heart, to keep the glow there all alive, he could not help 
realising at times, with mournful presentiment, their hollowness, 
the entire absence of ingenuousness and natural dignity which 
mostly characterised them. He would feel his flesh creep 
strangely too, as he recognised their close resemblance in arti- 
ficiality of sentiment and tone, to those first letters he had re- 
ceived from her mother. 

But he earnestly strove to banish all such impressions ; he felt 
as if they were profane, as if they were a monstrous wrong to 
her, as well as to himself. That she was too young as yet to 
have developed into the full faculty of expression ; that she was 
timid, and dared not trust herself to speak freely out ; that she 
feared his sharp criticism, and did not say everything that her 
soul moved her to speak ; that she dreaded his analysis ; and, in 
a word, had not quite overcome, in her feelings towards him, 
the instinctive apprehension of the master, the preceptor, which 
so long lingers in a youthful mind ; and this very timidity, of 
all things, he was desirous of removing, as he felt that, so long 
as it remained in her mind, the full and entire reciprocation of 
confidence, which the jealous exclusiveness of passion de- 


212 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


mands, could not take place. He felt that it was a most 
hazardous experiment he had been unconsciously making, in 
thus attempting to develope and educate a wife, especially under 
circumstances so unusual and ill-omened. He therefore fatally 
persisted in blaming himself for the self-evident shallowness of 
Elna’s letters; and would not hear to the whispers of his com- 
mon sense, that the child was a mere chip of the old block. 

So that still, in spite of his determined idealisation of her, 
while these evidences stared him in the face with each new, 
yearned-for, and eagerly-welcomed budget of letters from her, 
they only served to fill him, to a more sensitive degree, with the 
dangers of this excessive timidity, and the necessity of greater 
spiritual activity and tenderness of treatment on his part, that 
might arouse her to a more full realisation of the sacred confi- 
dences which love implies. His letters to her overflowed with 
natural eloquence ; and all that was chastening, ennobling, fair 
and pure, in the inspirations surrounding him, were lavished in 
the prodigality of an absorbing and overflowing affection upon 
this fair, hollow idol, that his passion alone had rendered all 
divine. 

This brooding, constantly and long, upon a single image, 
amidst the solemn privacies, the wild and drear solemnities of 
primeval nature, was quite sufficient to give, in time, to any na- 
ture possessing the intensity of that of Manton, a sultry tinge 
of monomania in reference to it. This was clearly the case 
with him now. Her image, glorified through his imagination, 
now filled all his life ; he saw her everywhere — where the beau- 
tiful might be, it took some shade of semblance to her — where 
the wild-flowers gave out their odors to the breeze, it was to him 
the aroma of her presence ; when the wild berry tingled his 
palate in a nameless ecstacy of flavor, the taste was of his sense 
of her, when, in their last kiss, her lips were touched to his. 

But it is a strange thing that, with all the fervor of this pas- 
sional attraction, he never dreamed of her at all ; she never 
came to his soul when his senses were asleep. This single fact 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


213 


might have warned a man of imagination less excited than 
Manton. This happy delusion had at least one good effect, as 
it enabled him, by a single effort, to throw off all his dangerous 
habits, and return from his tour, to New York, with a freshened 
and invigorated frame, and a soul chastened indeed, but filled 
with wild and eager hopes of the golden-hued Utopia he had 
framed out in the wilderness. 

Elna had returned and met him. Alas ! how his heart sank 
as, on the meeting, he felt the rainbow-hues all melting from 
out the visionary sky, and he took into his arms a cold, overact- 
ing, artificial semblance of his passionate ideal ! He felt as if 
the sky had turned to lead, and fallen on him ; and the first 
image recalled to his mind, was of the sick and monkey-imp, 
soulless and animal-eyed, that he had years ago rescued, in 
compassion, from the demon- talons of the mother. He clutched 
her aesperately to his heart, endeavoring to recall the soul he 
missea, and that she had lost, while he had been away. He 
felt as if there were fire enough in his own veins to make a soul 
— to fill that delicate and graceful organisation with a subtler 
element, that might answer to the ravin of his sympathies. 

No such response as he yearned for came ; but he felt in- 
stantly, from the contact of her hand, that fierce and sultry 
thrill, the memory of which had lingered so long with him, 
tinging his imagination with a lurid light amidst the white clear 
calm of nature’s inspirations. He would not give up now ; he 
had loved too long already — or, rather, the habit of confounding 
passion with love, had become too confirmed with him, for it to 
be readily possible that he should make the clear distinction be- 
tween images nurtured in his own mind and the objective real- 
ity. It was his own mistake ; he had expected too much of the 
child — he must give her time to gain confidence and speak out 
herself. 

Infatuated man ! She only wanted a few hours’ contact to 
speak out himself to himself, through the Odic medium! 

And so it proved. Her organisation soon took the key-note 


214 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


from his, and, in a few hours, responded as rapturously as he 
could desire, to the most vehement expressions of his enthu- 
siasm. 

First and foremost, she showed to him the drawings that she 
had made during their long probation. Among them were 
some, so characterised by a firm, exquisite delicacy of hand- 
ling, that Manton regarded them with delighted wonder, — more 
especially as the defect in Elna’s pencilling, which he had always 
noticed and lamented, had been precisely contrasted with the 
excellences here displayed. Elna’s had, with all its gay and 
mocking eccentricity, always been trembling and uncertain. 
The want of smooth and poised directness in her harsh, rude 
handling, had often been contrasted by him in his lessons to her, 
upon art, with the clear, firm, and mathematical precision of the 
lines of Moione. He could not but exclaim impulsively, on 
examining them curiously — 

“ Why, dearest, you have equalled the brightest excellence of 
the style of Moione in these. Ah, how I love you for this ! you 
are deserving of all that I have dreamed and thought and felt 
of you, since I have been away.” 

The blushing girl slid into his embrace ; and that moment was 
to Manton a sufficient compensation for all the self-degradation 
and the humiliating conditions through which he had passed. 
He was now to attain the coveted crown and glory of his life, 
as he conceived. An artist-wife! Capable, inspired, true, and 
a ‘‘help-mate” indeed, through whose assistance and tutored 
skill he might embody in realisation those fleeting and majestic 
creations which visited him, not alone in dreams, but in the real 
impersonations of his habitual thought. It had been a dream 
of such chaste beauty, that all these visionary forms might be 
transfigured to him in the alembic of art, through love, and be- 
come, in form and color, fireside realities of the canvass. 

We shall see how vague and empty was this fanciful dream, 
as yet. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


215 


CHAPTER XXV 

THE SEPARATION. 

Had it ever occurred to Manton to reason at all upon the 
subject of his passion for this girl Elna^, or had it been possible 
for him, under the circumstances which had lately surrounded 
bis life, to reason concerning her, in any sense, he must and 
would have felt how ominous such a passion in reality was. To 
be sure, he did not feel that the relations into which it had been 
attempted to drag him by the mother, had^'ever been voluntary 
or accepted on his part ; he had loathed and rebelled against 
them from the first. 

But this did not, in reality, make the fact of his having con- 
tinued near her — to occupy the same house — any the less offen- 
sive to the moral sense ; for, taking the best aspects of the case, 
the durance had not been a physical one, and he might, if he 
had so willed, have walked himself bodily off, and thus escaped 
this horrible entanglement ; but he had not done so. Although 
we have endeavored, as some extenuation, to trace the reasons 
why he had not thus acted, yet we have found no excuse suffi- 
cient, in all this, for the new sin he has committed, in daring to 
love, and contemplating honorable marriage, even, with the 
daughter of such a mother. But we have naught to extenuate, 
naught to set down in malice, in this too fatally true narrative ; 
w^e have related it because it is true, and because we felt it to 
be our duty to do so, that others might be warned of these 
things, which may, perhaps, enlighten the reader somewhat, as 
to the character of the new thraldom to which Manton has been 
subjected. 

It must always be borne in mind, in speaking of Manton and 
I measuring his actions, that although the nervous sanguine tern- 


216 ' SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 

perament predominated to an extraordinary degree in this man’s 
organisation, the tendencies of his mind were, nevertheless, un- 
usually conservative. This rendered him, necessarily, a man 
of habits ; and therefore, more than usually liable to suffer from 
gradual and constant encroachment : for, if his quick sense has 
not instantly detected the danger on its first presentation — if his 
ear has not recognised the serpent’s hiss at once among the 
flowers, his fearless hand would soon be caressing the shining 
reptile, and bear it, it might be, even to his own bosom. It 
was this tenacity of habits which liad rendered him so easy to 
be imposed upon. Nothing was so difficult for him to throw 
off as a habit ; for, from the intensity of his nature, it always 
cost him the suffering of a strong excitement before its chains 
could be broken. 

Manton found, very soon after his return, that what he most 
dreaded now, was to be at once precipitated, which was a sepa- 
ration between himself and Elna. Not that he did not fully 
concede to the general propriety and prudence of such a step ; 
for he remembered that he had at once proposed the previous 
separation, when he came to understand the nature of his feel- 
ings towards her ; but that had been when she was to be placed 
beyond the reach of her mother, and they could be both out of 
town at the same time ; but now that his business made it im- 
perative for him to remain in New York, if he dreaded before 
lest she be left with the mother one day even, were not the same 
causes operating still, and with redoubled force, when, in addi- 
tion to her baleful contact, he had to contemplate that of the 
creature she had married ? 

The moral and spiritual grime of such a contact was enough 
to blast an angel’s bloom — to sully the purest wing that ever 
winnowed dream. He must be there to shield his fair treasure 
always, till the time had come when he could snatch her for 
ever beyond their reach. But the war had now fairly opened. 

On the very day of his return, Manton had been not a little 
astonished to find the heretofore abject and cringing mother turn 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


217 


upon him, suddenly, with a lofty insolence, that seemed at first 
incredible ; but his surprise and anger rapidly gave way to 
wonder and stunned amaze, at finding her exhibiting the most 
unparalleled phenomena of brazen, grave, deliberate falsehood 
that ever still imagination, in bottomless conceit, had conjured 
as the thought of demons in dark hell. This was yet, strange 
as it may seem, a most terrible realisation to have come upon 
his life ; though he had, up to this time, known that she was 
unscrupulous, as far as the attainment of influential connexions, 
for the dissemination of her theoretical views, was concerned — 
that she was, in this respect, a dangerous and an evil woman — 
that her influence would make her presence deadly to purity, in 
her own or the other sex ; yet, he had not learned to regard her 
as utterly God-forsaken. The veil was now lifted. The scales 
that had remained fell forever from his eyes. She now stood 
revealed, not as he had heretofore striven to palliate his convic- 
tions concerning her — the ferocious fanatic of one idea — the 
cunning and detestable Jesuit of a ‘‘A cause” — but as the 
incarnation of unnatural passions and a demonised selfishness 
He trembled to his heart’s core at the thought of that fair young 
girl, whom he had learned to love, being left to the tender mer- 
cies of a monster such as this. He saw at once the whole nefa- 
rious scheme that had been concocted between herself and her 
worthy coadjutor. 

This was but the initial step. This precipitation of a quarrel 
with himself, which would bring about at lea^t a partial 
separation with Elna, and then their subsequent game would 
slowly and surely accomplish the rest. Was it likely that a 
wretch like this pink of delicacy, Narcissus, who had be- 
fore, for years, been steeped to the lips in that monstrous traffic, 
the sale of bodies as well as souls, would quietly permit to slip 
through his fingers a lovely and fascinating girl as Elna had now 
grown to be, over who’s value, in dollars and cents, he had 
gloated from the first ? or was it likely that his worthy consort, 
who had clearly learned to appreciate the convenience of such 
19 


218 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


speculations, would not fully coincide with him in his view of 
the policy of defeating Manton, who, in the event of success, 
would be sure to separate her from them as far as the poles are 
sundered ? 

We shall now see how far the young lady herself was likely 
to, or had already, become a party to such utilitarian views. 

Manton had left the house, and taken board elsewhere. The 
same evening, he visited Elna, who received him alone, in the 
warm, well-lighted, and neatly-arranged parlor. Manton had 
come in the most hopeless mood, &r all the results of this sepa- 
ration had been most fully and painfully impressed upon him 
since the first indication of the rupture that had led to his quit- 
ting the house. 

The young girl sprang eagerly to meet him, and with a 
bounding caress clasped his neck, exclaiming — 

‘‘Dearest one, you must not look so sad! We are to have 
the parlor thus every evening, when you shall come to see me ; 
when we shall be very stately and proper folk. I shall play the 
dignified matron in anticipation, and you shall be my very wise 
and solemn lord and master. Mother is not to permit any 
interruption, and we shall have such nice and easy times. 
Come, sit down here by my side, and let us begin to play 
stately. And clear up that gloomy brow of yours, for I am de- 
termined that we shall be happy I” 

Manton could only smile faintly, as he seated himself. 

“ Ah, heedless child, you do not see in all this gay vision, the 
black and deadly realities that couch within its shadows ! I 
understand your mother’s game fully. This will not last long ; 
and you are about to be sorely tried, my little love !” 

His head fell back heavily, and his eyelids drooped with an 
expression of unutterable despondency. Elna, who had been 
watching him eagerly, now flew to his side, and taking his 
head gently on her shoulder, commenced caressing his face 
in a peculiar manner. She did not absolutely touch it, but 
her lips crept over certain portions with a slow snake-like mo- 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


219 


tion, while the deep heavings of her chest, disclosed that she 
was breathing heavily upon them, and a certain greenish dilation 
of the pupil of her eyes revealed — what ? Ah, horror ! and she 
so young ! What ? what ! is that the mother’s art ? Let us see. 

The lines of the man’s face are sunken in the expression of 
hopeless prostration. Soon a slight twitching of the nerves be- 
comes evident, then a faint smile breaks across its pallor ; the 
inspirations become deeper, and she breathes with almost con- 
vulsive energy. The glowing air lingers and burns along the 
sensitive temple, and now it pauses on the cheek, close beside 
the ear — ha ! her arm is about his neck ; is it a wonder that the 
blood mounts flushing to that man’s cheek and forehead, that 
his eyes fly open filled with wild and vivid fires, that a shudder- 
ing thrill is running through his frame, as he stretches forth his 
arms to her, with a low, ecstatic laugh, of passionate yearning, 
while she clings about him, and their lips meet, in a burning, 
lingering kiss, and then, with a light laugh, she springs beyond 
his reach, and dances in tantalising mockery about him, per- 
mitting him but to touch her for a moment, eltiding his grasp, 
with yet more subtle sleight, until exhausted by morbid excite- 
ment the unfortunate man sinks upon the sofa ? 

This picture is only but too real. But why should Manton 
have endured the repetition of a scene like this ? He was a man 
of habits, and for years, before a thought of passion had for 
once intruded upon him, this young girl, under the sacred shield 
of childhood, had been taught to approach him with fondling 
caresses. There seemed no danger then, but when the real 
time for danger came, he felt a vague and general monition of 
it, yet failed to locate it where it really rested. These caresses 
had become so * dear and natural to him ; they seemed so 
harmless. 

He blamed only himself, cursed only the unetherialised gross- 
ness of his own nature. There was to him far too much of 
aflfection and accustomed tenderness in all this to arouse his sus- 
picions for a moment. He hated only himself, and strove on 


220 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


each of these now frequent occasions, to chasten, by the severest 
self-inflicted penance, his own soul. 

In the meanwhile, this modern Tantalus grew thinner and 
more pale each dtiy ; was wasting rapidly to a shadow, beneath 
such scenes as we have witnessed. 

The girl, Elna, grew fairer and more strong each day — 
seeming to have fed upon his slow consumption. 

We will not dwell upon such pictures farther. It was enough 
that all the consequences dreaded by Manton followed, in slow, 
but sure progression, and that the last blow the subtle couple 
struck at him was fully characteristic and consummated the 
separation. 

Elna had seen little, as yet, of public amusements, and her 
strong imitative faculty had led her to express a passion for the 
stage, which Manton greatly dreaded, and had particularly 
wished to guard her against, until her mind should become more 
fully developed, and until he, himself, should possess the legal 
right to attend her, upon all such occasions. He had, therefore, 
at all times resolutely opposed her going to any public place 
of amusement, unless he could accompany her. But now 
it happened that, being engaged in bringing out a new work, 
with the press only twenty-four hours behind him, urging him 
inexorably for a certain amount of daily matter, which left him no 
leisure whatever, except a few moments, which he wrested from 
the vortex, for the short evening re-union with her he so loved, 
he had, therefore, no time left to accompany her to such places. 

Here the enterprising couple saw at once their advantage ; 
the mother understood what Manton did not, the extreme shal- 
lowness of the character he had thus perseveringly idealised. 
She at once laid siege to her passion for dress* and display, as 
well as novelty. They bought her fine and showy clothes, and 
urged her first to accompany them to concerts, then to theatres, 
and then to public balls. 

When the young girl first came to Manton, all flushed with 
eagerness, to show him her finery, and ask him if she might not 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


221 

go with her dear mother and her new ‘‘ papa,” he felt his heart 
sink unutterably within him. He reasoned with her long and 
earnestly, endeavoring to make her understand how impossible 
it was for a woman, who was to become his wife, to appear at 
any public assembly in the city of New York, with a person so 
notorious as this, whom she had thus, suddenly, learned to style 
‘‘papa.” 

But he soon found it to be all in vain ; for, when he told her 
if she would only be content to wait a few weeks until his book 
had been published, that he would himself dedicate any amount 
of time she might require to visiting such places with her, she 
still urged that she did not see why it was improper for her to 
accompany the man whom^^her mother had married, to any 
public place — that her new dresses were so beautiful — that she 
wished to attend this magnificent concert. 

Manto-n sighed heavily and only answered in a mournful 
voice to her repeated entreaties — 

“Alas! poor child, my dream is nearly over! I see they 
have bought you with the tinsel of a fine dress and new ribbons !” 

The child wept and fondled and caressed ; but all her arts 
failed this time. His heart felt like lead within him ; and he no 
longer had nerves with life enough to be played upon. But she 
went that night, nevertheless, and the great gulf had sunk im- 
passably between them. 

Manton was now again a madman. In the pride of his hope- 
ful love he had built magnificent schemes, which his singular 
energies had rapidly placed upon the firm basis of realisation ; 
it only required the calm exercise of his own will to consum- 
mate all and make his name illustrious. But he had not labored 
for himself — and she, for whom all had been achieved, was no 
longer his — she was gone — utterly gone! She had sold her 
birthright, and was no longer his. The world became dark, its 
honors and its ambitions as nothing. To recount the wild and 
desperate extravagance by which he dashed to earth all that he 
had achieved, as the heartless and hideous shallowness of the 
19 ^ 


222 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


phantom soul he had been worshipping, became, with each day, 
more apparent, would be only painful to the reader, who can 
well understand what to expect from the recklessness of such a 
madman. Suffice it that the separation was complete. He last 
saw her, but for an instant, on her eighteenth birth-night, to 
commemorate which, the mother, in pursuance of her schemes, 
had assembled a large party at her house. This was to have 
been their wedding-night; and Manton, though long since 
hopelessly separated from her, could not resist the passionate 
desire to see once more, upon this night, to which he had so long 
looked forward with holy raptures, that face and form. 

He rang the bell, and, by a curious instinct, she recognised 
the characteristic pull, and met him alone at the door. She was 
lovely, radiant even, as she had sometimes come to him in his 
wild imaginings. Dressed in pure white, with a wreath of 
flowering myrtle resting lightly on her brow. There was a look 
of exultation on her face which she had not been able to throw 
off, as she came forth from the admiration of the crowded room. 
Manton took her hand — 

“ Ah, child, you are very lovely now — you look just as I 
dreamed you would look on this night, when you were to have 
been my bride. My eyes are filled with blood, now ! I cannot 
see you any more ! Farewell! farewell !” and he rushed from the 
door into the dark street, while she, who had spoken no word, 
made no attempt to detain him, turned coldly back, and entered, 
with a beaming face, the scene of her new triumph. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


223 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

DESPAIR. 

“ The white feet of angels yet upon the hills.'' 

Months and months had passed, and yet this wretched man 
was staggering on, not this time drunk, literally, but, as though 
blinded by red blood oozing from his brain, which had been 
crushed by the weight of this blow. He was wandering vaguely 
hither and yon, distracting his brain in ineffectual chimeras, the 
very impossibilities of their success affording to him their greatest 
attraction. But gradually all this maddened struggle had been 
settling down into one sultry, close, inevitable conclusion of 
sullen self-destruction, which must result from the continued 
precipitation, upon conditions that promised death in one form 
or other. He went to Boston while the cholera was raging 
there at its worst. The pretence of the visit was some wild, dis- 
tracting scheme that he had seized upon, and in which he was 
endeavoring to secure co-operation there. 

But unfortunately for his mad purpose, since that very sepa- 
ration from daily contact with the girl Elna, which was working 
so sadly upon his imagination now, his attenuated and exhausted 
physique had rapidly recovered all its inherent vigor, and in 
animal health and strength he had suddenly become, by an inex- 
plicable reaction, more prodigally abounding than ever for many 
years. So that fate seemed to have closed up to him any ordi- 
nary means of getting rid of himself, except the pistol and the 
dagger, from the use of which his manliness unconquerably 
revolted. 

But by a strange process of self-delusion, he had managed to 
confound himself into the idea that the abject cowardice of the 
act of suicide might be avoided by a species of half unconscious 
indirection. For instance, cholera was rife in the city, and he 


224 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


well knew that long warm baths, by relaxing the system, would 
lay it more open to the attacks of any epidemical tendencies that 
might be prevalent ; and accordingly, without ever venturing to 
explain to himself why, he continued, day after day, to take these 
long hot baths, and then to eat and drink, in the quietest possi- 
ble way, everything that was specially to be avoided at such a 
time. 

While this novel process was thus coolly progressing, he one 
morning met, by the merest accident, on State Street, a person 
whom he knew to have been long and intimately the friend of 
the lost Moione and her family. Manton eagerly asked him 
if he knew where she could now be found ; for, strange enough, 
her calm image had lately intruded often into the darkened 
vistas of his thought, from whence he had supposed her ban- 
ished long ago. 

Her address was promptly given : it was in a remote and 
humble district of the city ; and, although Manton already felt 
the seeds of the disease, which he had thus pertinaciously in- 
vited, rioting within him, yet he vowed to himself that he would 
at once seek her. His first visit failed ; but the second found 
her, thin and wan, stretched on a lounge, awaiting she knew 
not whom. 

With a short cry of sudden joy, as she recognised his fea- 
tures, she sprang to meet him, as of old, with a childish caress. 
Ah, why was it that he felt such sullen cold, and yet saw light, 
falling like star-beams upon the midnight of his soul, as his 
arms met this fond and childish clasp ? He did not understand 
it — but we shall see ! 

The physical results, which he had so assiduously courted, 
could not be avoided. As he had walked about among his 
friends already for several days, with the premonitory symptoms 
of the fatal epidemic fully developed in his system, and as fully 
understood by himself, yet without the adoption, on his own 
part, of one single precautionary step, it was now sure to wreak 
its worst. Some, who could not help observing his ghastly ap- 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


225 


pearance, thought him monstrously reckless, and others, hope- 
lessly insane. 

Regardless of every remonstrance, he still kept his feet, until, 
at length, the third evening found him leaving his hotel, in a 
hack, which he ordered to be driven to the home of Moione j 
and from which he had to be carried, by the driver, into the 
parlor, where he sank upon what he supposed to be the last 
couch upon which he should recline in life. A strange, inde- 
structible feeling, that he must die beneath her eye, had urged 
him to this last and desperate exertion of the feeble vitality re- 
maining in him. He had lain himself there to die ; but why 
the strange purpose that she should minister to his passing 
breath ? Was it only here that peace could be found for him ? 

Moione was alone, with a timid, young, and undeveloped 
sister. Their mother was accidentally away that night ; having 
been detained by the illness of a friend, joined with the incle- 
mency of the night, which set in in darkness and storm, in 
terror, in thunder, and in blaze. In the meantime, the parox- 
ysms of cholera had commenced upon the enfeebled frame of 
Manton ; and the black fear of the night outside only corre- 
sponded to the convulsed and writhing agonies which now 
tossed him to and fro, in helpless, but most mortal agonies. 
The thunder crashed, and the frail house shook, and the fierce 
pangs shot along his quivering nerves, as vividly as any blinding 
burst of lightning from without. The darkness which sur- 
rounded him had been penetrated by a calm, pure light, that 
dimmed not nor trembled before the blinding blast. A voice, 
the soft, clear, cheerful tones of which vibrated not to the 
quick rattling of thunder-crashes from without, told him of 
strength and hope, of peace and a calm future, in the life yet 
beyond him on the earth — that he could not die now, and should 
not ! — until his will became electrified with a new impulsion, and 
was roused to cope with the fell demon that had thus, of his 
own invitation, possessed him ; and, illuminated with a sudden 


226 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


and rapid intellection, he directed her how to baffle every 
paroxysm of cranap as it rose. 

It is sufficient, he was thus sustained by light applications of 
cold-water, until the passing of the storm enabled her to sum- 
mon to his aid a physician, whose skilful application of the 
same powerful remedy, even in the “blue-stage” of collapse 
into which Manton had now fallen, sufficed to relieve him from 
the disease, with the vital principle yet striving in his frame ; 
though many days must elapse before those starry eyes, that held 
sleepless watch above him, could impart to his dimmed and in- 
credulous consciousness sufficient strength to enable him to lift 
his hand, in vague and mournful wonder that he still possessed 
a being. 

Ah, what an awakening was this ! Deep, deep, beneath the 
realms of shadow — dark and deep — he had lain in long and 
dumb oblivion of consciousness. He knew not that he lived ; 
it was a blank of rayless rest — a peace without sunshine. How 
profound! how unutterably still! What a contrast with the 
ceaseless, dreadful tension of the moiling chaos of past years, 
during which the passions had never slept, but, through his very 
dreams, had moaned in the weariness of strife. Alas ! the re- 
bellious heart, which struggleth in unyielding pride with life, 
refusing to concede to its conditions, how it must suffer ? The 
world know little of the life-long horrors of that fight — the un- 
idealizing world, the conservative, the compromising world. It 
little dreams what this self-immolating madman must endure — 
to what nights of sleepless thought, to what days of bleak and 
sullen isolation — walking apart from sympathies that are dis- 
trusted and scorned, yet yearned for — hating nothing, yet loving 
nothing which is warmed in the embrace of earth, because that 
earth may be accursed in his sight : its barren bosom has not 
yielded to his exacting soul the flowers and streams and echo- 
ing groves of the Utopia it has framed within him. 

This is the unpardonable sin of pride ! He dares to treat 
with contempt a world that will not turn to his inspired voice, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


227 


and live as he has dreamed it might live. It is not to be won- 
dered at, that the bolts fall thick and fast about him ; but when 
we see his pale brow scathed and seamed with many a stunning 
stroke, while his hollow eyes yet glitter with a deathless and 
defiant fire — when w’e think of the mortal tension of his unsym- 
pathised life — oh, should we not remember, that this painful 
warrior has been battling, not for base lucre, not for selfish ends, 
but for the beautiful, as it has been revealed to him — the true, 
as he has felt it — for the ideal in him; and that, though 
wretched and suffering and wan, it is, after all, 

“ Of such stuff as he, 

The gods are made.^^ 

It is of his suffering that his prowess comes — of his experiences, 
his themes — of his solitude, his reach and radiance of thought — 
of his strong will, his conquering flight at last. Do not think to 
pity him ; may-be he is pitying you. Do not attempt to “ save” 
him ; it may be, it is you who will be damned in the effort. 
Only let him alone — do not persecute him. Let his pride pass — 
that is what sustains him ; but for that, he would be like you, a 
mere “ compromise.” Give him the same chance that you 
give to others around you, and, although you may not under- 
stand him now, only give him time, he will make you under- 
stand him ; it may be, in wonder and in joy. 

But this waking — but this waking of the weary man ! Was 
it a new birth — a new resurrection — or, a mere waking from 
a light sleep, without a dream ? The world upon which his 
shrinking vision now opened was filled with sunshine — he was 
blinded with the glory thereof. He closed his thin eyelids’ and 
the splendor came through them, all rosy-hued and dimmed, 
that he could bear it ; but there was a starlight for him too, 
and he could bear its calm effulgence better. 

Yes, there were two stars, and they were tempered, that they 
might neither freeze nor slay his feeble life. When they came 
over him, as he lay in a half-trance of weakness, he could feel 


228 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


them through his eyelids and upon his heart ; and they were 
warm, and he felt his heart warm, as buds to the unfolding 
spring. A dim-remembered music flowed into his soul, faint 
and dim, but oh, sweetly mellowed, that he might not die ! 

There was a rustling, too, — it was as of a tempered wind, — 
and a soft touch ; it sent no thrill, but it was of healing — it sunk 
into his life in strength. A strange, balsamic tenderness, like a 
new sense of peace and joy, pervaded all his being — and a new 
growth set in apace, and a dim remembrance of ancient strength 
flitted into his thought. 

Ah, ha ! this wondrous presence, what was it ^ Moione, the 
ministering Moione! It was she! Ever there, sleeping and 
awake, she leaned over him. When he dreamed, he dreamed 
of a fair spirit, that hung upon the air above him, on viewless 
wings, and ever, with still eyes looking upon his, shedding their 
soft radiance deep into his soul. No wonder that life, in swift, 
light waves, came flooding in again ; no wonder that the crushed 
and much-enduring man became as a child once more, and 
laughed out in the sunshine with a simple joy. The Present 
was sufficient unto him ; he remembered not the Past now — the 
hideous, the spectre-haunted Past. What was it to him, when 
serene hope thus smiled } Ah, it was a happy time, that period 
of rapid convalescence. Yes, rapid, for his heart beat freely 
again. The natural sun could reach him ; no lurid delusion, like 
miasmatic fog, hung over to intercept the rays. 

They talked of the future, and peopled it with wild dreams, 
like children, until it all became as real to them as their own 
being. 

There was a strange and mournful romance, connected with 
the origin of Moione’s family, that pointed at possible realiza- 
tions in another country, through inheritance, that would be as 
gorgeous as the creations of Aladdin’s lamp. They talked of 
these prospects as of facts assumed, and of all the high- 
thoughted enterprises of the day which promised to be of true 
benefit to mankind, as already achieved, through their aid ; and. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


229 


with magnanimous simplicity, were already distributing hoarded 
and rusting millions to bless the world withal. These were 
gay day-dreams; but they were innocent, and, although they 
may never be realized, they gave them joy— inspired the yet 
feeble Manton with a future. 

There could be but one result to all this. His health was 
rapidly restored ; and when Manton married Moione, which he 
soon did, his soul now first found rest. The last that was 
spoken between them concerning Elna was in a conversation 
soon after, when she casually asked him — 

‘‘ Did Elna show you my drawings, when you came back 
from the North ?” 

“Your drawings? your drawings? She showed me some, 
the delicacy and calm precision of which, I remember, vainly 
intoxicated me with delight. But w^hy do you ask, dear?” 

“ Why, she carried off from me, about that time, certain 
studies of human anatomy, which I had elaborated much, and 
which I valued. As I have never been able to recover them, 
after repeatedly requesting their return, I thought, perhaps, she 
might have shown them to you, and then thrown them aside, 
through forgetfulness.” 

“Ah! ha!” said Manton, “I remember now. They were 
assiduously paraded before me by her as her own. In spite 
of my recognition of the fact, that she did not possess originally, 
and must have very suddenly acquired, the constitutional steadi- 
ness and delicacy of touch necessary to accomplish drawings so 
fine and exquisitely accurate, I never dreamed of imposition, of 
course ; and thus, with fatal credulity, set down to her credit, 
from what she had stolen of you, a new and infinitely signifi- 
cant attribute, which I had heretofore, specially and hopelessly, 
in spite of my passion, denied to her.” 

“ Let us forget it now,” was the quiet response. “ She is 
only harmful to either of us, as you may remember morbidly 
the relations which have existed between you ; the delusion is 
over.” 


20 


230 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


Such was the fact, indeed. Manton had at last found his 
artist- wife, and a true and wondrous artist did she prove indeed, 
realising his fond, high dream. Under this blessed and holy 
guardianship, he had returned fully to the realities of a true 
existence. He now saw, felt, and understood all that had oc- 
curred in that long shuddering dream ; and this reality he had 
attained seemed only the more unutterably precious. ' 

When the calm Moione revealed to him all the secret of the 
bleak and poverty-stricken desolation, in which he found her 
living, he was not at all astonished to find that her mother, who 
was a generous, trusting, noble-hearted zealot of Water-cure, 
had been another of the many victims of Boanerges Phospher, 
the ‘‘Spiritual Professor.” He had not only stripped her wid- 
owed isolation of all the appliances of household comfort, which 
years of devoted and self-sacrificing labor had enabled her to 
collect and throw together, in respectable defence between her 
helpless children and common want, but had absolutely turned 
her out of doors, without even spoon, or knife, or fork left her, 
of all this little property which she had thrown in rashly, per- 
haps, but earnestly, and with a noble dedication of her widow’s 
mite, towards furnishing a Water-cure establishment. 

The cause was one that she revered for the good that she 
knew, .practically, it might accomplish; and Boanerges, who 
was in this case, as usual, profoundly ignorant of what he had 
undertaken to do, had availed himself of her well-known expe- 
rience and knowledge of Water-cure, just so long as sufficed to 
collect around him again a hirsute confederacy of faithful Ama- 
zons ; the strength of which he thought would be sufficient to 
over-ride all opposition, and sustain him in the valorous assault 
upon helpless widowhood intended. He then openly claimed 
her property as his own, and the proud, uncomplaining mother 
of Moione was, of course, plundered of her all — victimised! 

The sainted Boanerges spon met with a just retribution. The 
partner, to whom he had assigned, in trust, to stave off his cre- 
ditors, all his claims upon this illustrious institution, and who, 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


231 


from the late chrysalis of a vulgar tailor, had suddenly been 
emancipated into an M. D. of Water-cure, at once sprung upon 
him his legal rights, under the transfer, and he was reduced 
again to beggary. 

Some method WTested from his puerile studies of Sweden- 
borg, has no doubt,, by this time, and upon some other tack, 
suggested to the “ Spiritual Professor” just enough of wisdom 
to enable him to persevere in “saving” the elderly New- 
Lights of the land. 

We wish Boanerges happiness in his new enterprises; for, 
certainly, his versatility at least commands respect. 


232 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

THE ‘‘ SECRET CONCLAVE.” 

The Editor finds that here the connected narrative of Ethe- 
rial Softdown breaks off. Though there are many fragmentary 
notes, which he found in Yieger’s Cabinet, which bear a clear, 
yet somewhat disconnected relation, to the past and future of 
the scenes and actors already described ; these he has thought 
proper to collate, and throw together into something as nearly 
approaching order as their desultory character will permit. 

This man Yieger seems to have been an enthusiast of a very 
unusual stamp. He has, however, left so little concerning him- 
self, that we can only say, he appears to have made it his 
business to follow" up, in a quiet and unsuspected way, a certain 
series of investigations, the purport and tendency of which was 
to unveil a class of crimes, w^hich, from being secret, w^ere en- 
abled to work and worm their w"ay nearest to the core of the 
social state. 

Thus, in addition to the monstrous and unimagined vices de- 
scribed by him in the preceding chapters, he seems to have dis- 
covered secret combinations, the possibilities of which have 
probably never entered before into human brains, but the results 
of which w^ere as prodigious as the causes were unsuspected. 
These were composed of no mystic demagogues of humanita- 
rianism, who sheltered mere partisan and personal designs, 
under the broad curtain of secret rituals symbolising philan- 
thropic aims ; no bald enthusiasts, who softly sunk their indi- 
vidualities in an Order, and sold their god-like birthrights of 
universal benevolence, of world- wide charity, for the golden 
shackles of a pretentious benevolence, the selfish code of w^hich 
was, mutual protection first, and — nobody else afterwwds! 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


233 


These were wise, bold, hardened men — hardened in the 
rough contests by the highways of life — who had seen all, felt 
all, and known all, that life could give or take. They were pre- 
pared for any of its extremes, but had outlived its sympathies. 
They were incarnations of pure intellection ; the accomplish- 
ment of the object was their conscience — they despised alle- 
gories, and they trampled upon symbols. Nothing was myste- 
rious to them, but an undigested purpose. For them there was 
no law but that might be eluded — no sanctities, but as they 
might be used — no religion but necessity, which was, to them, 
achievement ! 

When such men organised, they merely came together, — ten 
or a dozen of them, — they required no oaths, no pledges — they 
knew each other ! “We hold such and such opinions upon 
one point only ; and that one point is, mutual interest, and under 
that, 1st, that we can govern this nation ; 2d, that to govern it, 
we must subvert its institutions; and, 3d, subvert them we will ! 
It is our interest ; this is our only bond. Capital must have ex- 
pansion. This hybrid republicanism saps the power of our great 
agent by its obstinate competition. We must demoralise the 
republic. We must make public virtue a by-word and a mock- 
ery, and private infamy to be honor. Beginning with the people, 
through our agents, we shall corrupt the State. 

“We must pamper superstition, and pension energetic fanati- 
cism — as on ’Change we degrade commercial honor, and make 
‘success’ the idol. We may fairly and reasonably calculate, 
that within a succeeding generation, even our theoretical schemes 
of republican subversion may be accomplished, and upon its ruins 
be erected that noble Oligarchy of caste and wealth for which 
we all conspire, as affording the only true protection to capital. 

“ Beside these general views, we may in a thousand other ways 
apply our combined capital to immediate advantage. We may 
buy up, through our agents, claims upon litigated estates, upon 
confiscated bonds, mortgages upon embarrassed property, 
land-claims. Government contracts, that have fallen into weak 
20 * 


234 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


hands, and all those floating operations, constantly within hail, 
in which ready-money is eagerly grasped as the equivalent for 
enormous prospective gains. 

“ In addition, through our monopoly of the manufacturing in- 
terest, by a rigorous and impartial system of discipline, we shall 
soon be able to fill the masses of operators and producers with 
such distrust of each other, and fear of us, as to disintegrate 
their radical combinations, and bring them to our feet. Govern- 
ing on ’Change, we rule in politics ; governing in politics, we 
are the despots in trade; ruling in trade, we subjugate produc- 
tion; production conquered, we domineer overlabor. This is 
the common-sense view of our interests — of the interests of 
capital, which we represent. In the promotion of this object, 
we appoint and pension our secret agents, who are everywhere 
on the lookout for our interests. We arrange correspondence, 
in cipher, throughcut the civilized world ; w^e pension our 
editors and our reporters ; we bribe our legislators, and, last of 
all, we establish and pay our secret police, local, and travelling, 
whose business it is, not alone to report to us the conduct of 
agents already employed, but to find and report to us others, 
who may be useful in such capacity. 

“We punish treachery by death !” 

Such is a partial schedule of the terms of one of these terri- 
ble confederacies, as furnished in a detached note by Yieger, 
which held its secret sessions in New York city. He seems to 
have obtained a sight of some of their records, but by w-hat 
means, the most daring could only conjecture. He appears to 
have regarded this particular organisation as the most formida- 
ble of all, and to have traced many of its ramifications, in their 
covert results, with a singularly dogged tenacity. 

Among the extraordinary papers contained in the Cabinet 
he has left, are to be found short notes, containing what are 
clearly reports and proceedings 'of this formidable conclave. 
Its mysterious signature, Regulus, seems to have been known 
throughout the world ; and even he, though clearly a fierce and 


ETHEKIAL SOETDOWN. 


235 


relentless foe, never writes it, but with the involuntary conces- 
sion of respect, which large, clear letters, underscored, would 
seem to convey. 

Having now presented such an outline of the character and 
designs of this secret conclave, as the means of information fur- 
nished him have enabled him to do, the Editor will proceed 
with the promised extracts from its proceedings, such as relate 
to those in regard to whom the reader may be supposed to have 
some curiosity. 

First, we have here 


‘‘a note concerning etherial softdown. 

‘‘ This woman, whose patronymic was Softdown, first mar- 
ried a Quaker, named Orne ; which name, after her separation, 
and until after her divorce, she continued to bear, with the alias 
of Marie. She began her public career, soon after her marriage, 
as a Quaker preacher ; but the straitness of this sect notxonform- 
ing at all to her latitudinarian principles, she recanted in disgust, 
and left the society. She now plunged at once into Physiology, 
and, after a miraculously short gestation, produced a few lectures, 
with which she went the rounds of two or three New England 
States, accompanied by her husband, whom she, sans ceremonie^ 
dubbed M. D., without putting him to the trouble of reading, 
or ever having read, a book on any subject. He officiated as 
ner doorkeeper, and received the ‘ shillings but, refusing to 
render any account of the proceeds, a furious feud grew up 
between them, and soon the war waxed hot and fierce. 

“ Finding this to be poor business on the whole, she deserted 
nim, taking her child with her. The next occupation in which 
we find her versatile genius engaged, w’as that of teaching 
French ; a more humble employment, surely, but one for 
which she was equally well fitted. This, however, soon dis- 
gusted her, as her unreasonable patrons would insist upon 
the vulgar necessity of her being able to speak French, as 


236 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


well as teach it. It was at best but a tame avocation, and one 
entirely unsuited to her ambitious temper. 

‘‘ Having now fairly assayed her wings for flight, she soared 
aloft at once, in full career, through mid-air. She became first 
a preacher of Universalism ; but meeting, about this time, with 
the celebrated Boanerges Phospher, she, in a few weeks, turned 
out full-plumed, as a lecturer on Elocution. To this she soon 
added a knowledge of Phrenology, which, in her active zeal, 
she took care to impart to the world, as fast as acquired, and in 
the same public manner. 

Then, as a natural consequence, came Mesmerism ; then 
Neurology. Of all these sciences she became the prompt ex- 
pounder, after a few days’ investigation. 

“ From this point she immediately ascended a step higher, and 
announced herself as a revelator in Clairvoyance ; and, by an 
inevitable progression, she at once found admission, along with 
Andrew Jackson Davis and a host of other seers, into the Swe- 
denborgian Arcana, and held herself on terms of frequent inter- 
course and positive intimacy with the angel Gabriel, and, indeed, 
the whole heavenly host. 

‘‘ They revealed to her that the great and unpardonable sins 
of humanity were, first, eating pork; second, using tobacco, 
whether snuffing, smoking, or chewing; and, third, wine-drink- 
ing in all its forms. They accordingly commissioned her, form- 
ally, to go forth into the world as a missionary, to warn mankind 
against the fearful consequences of these vices, and to ‘ save ’ 
them therefrom. 

“ The exposition of Grahamism and Bran-bread was now 
added to the enlarged circle of her enlightened Professorships ; 
and, by this aid, and that of her spiritual commission, she 
wrought wonders, in assailing the camps of the great foes of 
humanity — Pork, Tobacco, and Wine! 

Many were the brands plucked by her from the burning, or 
rather ‘saved’ — preachers, lawyers, editors, artists, and wa- 
tery-eyed young gentlemen, in particular. It was on this grand 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 237 

tour that she first assumed her most distinguished attribute, the 
Patroness of Art — particularly of the Artists. 

Returning to civilization once more, she again assumed her 
cast-off Professorship of Physiology, and began lecturing to 
classes of her own sex. Now, with the first gleam of light 
from Graefenberg, she pronounced herself as having been, for 
many years before, a practitioner of the system ; and at once 
proceeded to combine Grahamism, Mesmerism, Water-cure, 
and Physiology. 

‘‘ While in the vein of Physiology, she also lectured on the 
benefits of Amalgamation, Abolitionism, and Non-resistance. 
About this time, having met with one of the chief expounders of 
Fourierism, whom she also undertook to ‘save,’ she turned out in 
a few weeks a Phalanxsterian lecturer. That bubble had barely 
exploded, when she came forth a Communist. Shortly after- 
wards, having one or two editors separately undergoing the 
process of being ‘saved,’ she became authoress ! She pro- 
duced several physiological novels, a number of essays, poems, 
volumes of lectures, &c., &c. 

“The police which obey the mandates of the formidable 
Regulus, have kept the changes of this feminine Proteus for 
now upward of forty years, steadily in view ; and the Council 
of Disorganisation report, through their committee, that they 
have ample reason to be pleased with this Etherial Softdown, as 
the most indefatigable, active, unscrupulous, and energetic of 
the agents of Demoralisation in the employment of the Secret 
Conclave. 

“ They congratulate themselves in the belief that, with an hun- 
dred such employees devoted to their service, they could cor- 
rupt the private faith and public virtue of the whole Union so 
effectually, in a single generation, as to enable them to utterly 
destroy its social organisation and subvert its Constitution. 

“ This would, of course, secure the desired Oligarchy of caste 
and wealth, and reduce the nation to serfdom. 

“ She is to be encouraged, and placed upon the pension-list 
of the ‘Secret Conclave.’ 


238 


SPIKITUAL VAMPIKISM. 


“ Since this report, the latest transformations of Etherial Soft- 
down have been, first, into rabid Bloomerism ; in the height of 
which madness, she possessed a sufficiency of the martyr-spirit 
to parade herself, on all public occasions, though nearly fifty 
years of age, in full costume. 

‘‘ By a necessary transition, the next step was into an apostle- 
ship of the new school of ‘Woman’s Rights’ and Abolition- 
ism ; which openly rejoices in the repudiation of the Bible from 
among the sacred books of the world — accepting it merely as 
the text-book of popular cant, to be used in working upon the 
passions and superstitions of the mob. 

“ This last metamorphosis of Etherial Softdown seems to be 
the most promising of all those through which the police of the 
‘ Conclave’ have, thus far, been able to trace her.”* ^ . 


* The followiDg note- was received, in answer to one -addressed to 
a distinguished surgeon of Philadelphia, in relation to the phenome- 
non of voluntary bleeding, so frequently illustrated in the History of 
Etherial Softdown. — Editor. 

“ Dear Sir: 

“ The case which you presented to me, for an explanation of the causes 
which may have produced voluntary discharges of blood from the mouth, 
is certainly a very remarkable one, though by no means without parallel 
in the records of feigned diseases. The power of the will, in persons of 
peculiar formation or constitution, is seen, occasionally, to be extended 
to various organs designed by nature to act without awakening con- 
sciousness and in a manner altogether beyond the control of the indi- 
vidual. To say nothing of many muscles of the scalp, the ears, the skin 
of the neck, &c., which are used to great purpose by the inferior ani- 
mals, but are totally inactive in man, except in a few rare instances, it 
is well known that many persons possess the power of voluntary vomit- 
ing. About forty years ago, a man presented himself before a cele- 
brated surgeon of London, and proved that he possessed the ability to 
check completely the flow of blood through the artery at the wrist, by 
violently contracting a muscle of the arm above the elbow, which, in 
his case, happened to overlap and press upon the main trunk of the 
vessel. I am acquainted with a gentleman in this country, who can 
perform the same feat. There is on record a well-authenticated history 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


239 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

REPORTS OF THE “ SECRET CONCLAVE.” 

We continue our reports of the police of the Conclave,” 
so far as we find them relating to Etherial Softdown and her 
friends. 


of a man who could completely control, by will, the motions of his 
heart ; and who, eventually, committed accidental suicide, by arresting 
the circulation so long that the heart never reacted. I am acquainted 
with a gentleman who can voluntarily contract and dilate the pupil of 
the eye to a certain extent ; and have seen the same effect repeatedly, 
and in a far greater degree, among the Hindoo jugglers. This action 
is natural in the owl, but probably requires a peculiar nervous structure 
in man. Some persons have a power of so completely simulating death, 
that neither by respiration, the motion of the eye under light, nor the 
pulse, could any unprofessional observer, or even an experienced phy- 
sician, detect the counterfeit. One of my servants in India, struck 
another Hindoo with his open hand, for some impertinence. The man 
instantly fell, apparently dead ; and I happened to arrive just as the 
friends were about to remove the body, no doubt for the purpose of ex- 
torting money by concealment and false pretences. I could perceive no 
respiration (the glass-test was not applied), no pulse at the wrist; the 
pupil of the eye was fixed in all lights. There was, however, a slight 
thrilling in the carotid artery, and I judged the case to be one of ad- 
mirable feigning. Severe pinching was borne without change of ex- 
pression, as was also the deep prick of a pin. For amusement, I 
pronounced him dead, but assured the ignorant natives that I would 
bring him to life. On my calling for a little pan of coals, — always ready 
in a bachelor drawing-room in the East, for lighting cigars, — there came 
over the countenance the slightest possible shade of anxiety. I ordered 
the patient's abdomen laid bare, and gently toppled a bright coal from 
the pan upon it. The effect was magical. Instantly, the fellow gave 
the most lively evidences of vitality ; and, as he crossed the Compound 
and darted through the gateway, he seemed solely bent upon rivalling 
the mysterious industry of the * man with the cork-leg.' 


240 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


This report says of Eusedora Polypheme : — ‘‘ This ■woman 
is between thirty and thirty-five years of age. She is of New 
England birth, and commenced her education at what we con- 
sider the female high-schools of demoralisation on the Conti- 
nent — ‘the factories.’ 

“These establishments are especially patronised by the 
‘ Council of Disorganisation,’ who consider them of vast effi- 
, ciency, on account of the well-understood certainty with which 
the results we aim at are achieved, under this system. So great 
is this certainty, indeed, that we- may always safely calculate 
that eight-tenths of the females who seek employment in them 
come forth, if they ever do alive, inoculated with just such 
principles and habits as we desire to have spread among the 
rural population to which the majority of them return. Cor- 
rupted themselves, they act as admirable mediums and con- 
ductors of corruption to the class from whom they went forth 
innocent, and which receives them again without suspicion. 

“ Besides the spinal diseases, affections of the lungs, twisted 


“ By strong contraction of all the muscles of the chest, ■while those 
of the neck are rigid and the lungs fully inflated, the vessels of the head 
and neck can he distended almost to bursting. Actors sometimes use 
this power to produce voluntary blushing, or the sufiusion of anger, 
though the practice endangers apoplexy. I take this to be the secret 
of the voluntary bleeding, in the case described by you. 

“ The tonsils, and the membrane of the throat behind the nose and 
mouth, are full of innumerable blood-vessels, forming a net-work ; and 
very slight causes often produce great enlargement of these vessels. 
By frequent temporary distension, they are not only permanently en- 
larged, but made more susceptible of additional expansion from trivial 
accidents. In this condition, they may be brought to resemble, in some 
degree, what is termed, by anatomists, the erectile tissue, which struc- 
ture has sufficient contractility to prevent the admission of more than 
an ordinary amount of blood on common occasions, but when excited 
in any way, it yields with great ease, and admits of enormous dilata- 
tion. Erectile tumors are dangerous, from their tendency, ultimately, 
to bleed spontaneously. They are sometimes formed in the throat. The 
party referred to may have one, or she may have simply enlarged the ves- 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


241 


bodies, and deformed limbs, which the greater number of these 
girls take home with them, all the foolish' romanticism of girl- 
hood has been thoroughly crushed out of them, by the morale 
which we have promoted in these institutions, and their minds 
and tastes have become even more vitiated than' their bodies. 

‘‘ It will thus be' seen that this factory system is our chef- 
(Pceuvre of demoralisation of the simple agricultural classes. 

■‘‘But in yet another aspect the results, it will be perceived, 
are still more brilliant'. We soon found the necessity of creat- 
ing a public sentiment in favor of our system, which would put 
a stop to officious investigation and interference with our plans. 
We accordingly established a defensive literature, in the shape 
of dainty serials, announced as being edited by the factory-girls 
themselves. These were filled with sentimental effusions, written 
principally to order, outside the factories, the general burden of 
which consisted in poetico-rural pictures of the joys brought 
home by the patient and industrious factory-girl, to some hip- 
shotten father or bedridden grand-papa. These little incidents 


sels by habitual mechanical distension, by compressing the chest in the 
manner just described. There is such a natural tendency, in all parts 
about the throat and nose, to bleed from slight causes, particularly 
after repeated inflammation, that it strikes me as by no means wonder- 
ful, that a designing person should, by long-practised mechanical eflbrts, 
aided, perhaps, by the consequences of former colds, reduce these parts 
to a condition such that they would bleed from voluntary distension. 
The only wonder in the case is the quantitij discharged, while this person 
does not appear to be subject to involuntary hemorrhage also. This 
result will probably occur hereafter, and the impostor may share the 
fate of the man who arrested the motion of his heart. 

“ These cases of feigned diseases give great vexation to army sur- 
geons and almshouse physicians ; and, in private life, are often resorted 
to by the cunning and unprincipled, for the purpose of harrowing the 
feelings of relatives, from some sinister intention. It might well be 
wished, that the case you describe were one of the most difiicult of de- 
tection, but it is far from being so. 

“ Believe me, my dear sir, 

“ Very truly, yours, &c. 


21 


242 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


were studiously invested with all that charming unexpectedness 
and die-away bathos, which is so attractive to girlish imagina- 
tions, and so satisfactory to elder philanthropists. Then there 
was still another class of romances, cultivated with yet more 
fervid unction. These consisted in stories of a lovely young 
girl, who, all for ‘ love of independence,’ gave up a home of 
luxury, to come to the factories and make a living for herself, 
independent of her natural guardians. How this stout-hearted 
young lady one day attracted, by her beauty, the attention of a 
handsome young gentleman of romantic appearance, who visited 
the mills along with a party of other strangers. How the ro- 
mantic young gentleman was very much struck, while the 
strong-minded Angelina was rendered nervous ; how the 
heart- stricken, after many trials, succeeded in moving upon 
the heart of the ‘ sleepless gryphon ’ of morality with whom 
Angelina boarded, to permit him to have an interview — at 
least in said gryphon’s presence ; how that then and there the 
young gentleman, in the most ‘proper’ way declared himself, 
sought Angelina’s hand, and was accepted • and how he turned 
out to be the son of a Southern nabob, and Angelina, from a 
poor factory-girl, became one of the foremost ladies of the land ; 
and how, though, she never forgot her dear and happy com- 
panions of the factory. This same susceptible young South- 
erner is the standing hero of four-fifths of these girls, and, as 
he does not come every year to make them all rich, we may 
congratulate ourselves upon the general morals consequent upon 
isuch reasonable expectations. 

“ Out of one or two thousand girls, there are usually a few 
who exhibit some sprightliness. In the ratio of the ductility 
of their characters, are they sure to be selected, and brought 
forward by our managers; and in proportion as they exhibit 
their availability, are they readily promoted to editorships. 
They receive private salaries, and are released from any other 
than nominal participation in the routine of factory labor. 
From this distinguished caste of young ladies of the factory, 
Eusedora Polypheme originated. 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


243 


‘‘We expect gratitude from all such favored parties; and 
Eusedora proved the most grateful of the grateful. She as 
readily took to the shallow limpidity of Mr. Little, alias Tommy 
Moore, as ever did callow cygnet to the drains of a Holland flat. 

She possessed, indeed, a marvellous gift of sentiment — a sac- 
chariferous faculty, that would have caused Cerberus himself to 
have licked his jagged lips. She was accordingly encouraged 
to cultivate transcendental tendencies, exchanged with the Dial, 
and, after a few months’ exercise, she spoke like a veritable 
Pythoness. 

“ Considering that she had now made herself sufficiently 
familiar with 

‘ The celestial syren’s harmony,’ 

to make her of value to us abroad, we placed her on our pen- 
sion-list, and turned her loose upon society. 

“ This step the Committee have never had cause to regret. 
She leaped upon the social stage, a specimen of what the factory 
system could produce — achieved the lioness at once, and had 
the honour of being hailed in all circles, a phenomenon, a lusus 
natures — the world was undecided which, considering she was 
nothing but a factory-girl. They must be eminent institutions 
surely, since they could turn out young ladies who talked so 
‘ divinely,’ possessed ‘ such ’ command of language, and w'ere 
such favorites with the gentlemen ! 

“ There was a society, too, not very far off from this, into 
which she had forced her way, and which haughtily called itself 
‘ the best,’ that held its court in houses with dingy outsides, that 
lined the back-alleys ; but, amidst garish and sickening splen- 
dors within, the ‘highly intellectual’ character of the hollow- 
eyed and painted queens who presided there, was equally owing 
to the educations they had received at the same ‘eminent’ insti- 
tutions — only they had had more soul and less cunning than 
Eusedora Polypheme, and would not, therefore, have been so 
available to the Committee. 


244 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


“ When a class is already sunk as low as it can sink, it is not 
our policy to go aside to interfere with them, for they are sure 
to fecundate in degradation fast enough ; our sole aim is to drag 
the grades above down to their level, which we consider a safe 
one. 

“ There is nothing so dangerous to the designs of the Com- 
mittee of Disorganisation, as soul — what the world calls heart. 
To an executive power, these are always considered intrusive 
and distasteful superfluities ; and it was because Eusedora has 
managed, by some surprisingly efficient process, to rid herself 
of both, that she is to be so trusted. 

‘‘ Besides parading her accomplishments everywhere, as 
merely a fair average of the education of a factory-girl, she 
very soon mapped out for herself a very peculiar field for ope- 
rations. She became the leader of a new school of Platonic 
Sentimentalism, in New England. This was an achievement — 
a decided triumph. She soon gathered around her a host of 
feminine disciples^ — principally young and unmarried, with pre- 
mature wrinkles on their brows. 

“After years of close observation of the operations of this 
sect, its police would beg to express to the Committee their 
unqualified admiration of the results obtained. The increase 
of the number of suicides has been gratifying. The number 
of young men and girls rendered worthless for life ; the number 
of elderly men plundered and cajoled out of their means and 
driven into dotage, is only equalled by the surprising rapidity 
with which the fanaticism has spread ; indeed, it would seem as 
if the first step towards all the popular forms of fanaticism, is 
through Platonic Sentimentalism. 

“ It seems, that it is through the teachings of this school, of 
which Eusedora Polypheme is now the acknowledged priestess, 
that the hollowness and unsatisfactory character of all our natu- 
ral sentiments and passions is first perceived. This illumination 
achieved, it becomes necessary that their place be supplied by 
what the world would call morbid sentimentality and unnatural 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


245 


passions, but which Eusedora Polypheme aptly terms, ‘ spherical 
illuminations’ and ‘divine ecstacies.’ But since we know, as 
well as Eusedora, that flesh is flesh, and blood is blood, we can 
therefore calculate, with great precision, whither such mystifica- 
tions must lead. 

“ Hardened and sharpened in mind and temper, by a gradu- 
ation in this school, its disciples pass, not from it, but through it, 
into other, and, to us, not less important fields of activity. Hence 
come the fiercest and most unscrupulous partisans of Infidelity, 
Abolitionism, and Woman’s Rights. Having learned both theo- 
retically and practically to disbelieve in themselves, by the most 
natural transition in the world, they become infidel of all other 
truths, and scorn all other sacrednesses alike. They are then 
prepared to be of use to us in a variety of ways. The spirit of 
antagonism, the. love of strife and notoriety, have assumed in 
them the sense of duty, justice, and modesty; a spiritual diablerie 
has possessed itself of the emasculated remains of womanhood 
left in them. Only give them a chance for martyrdom — only 
give them an excuse for the cry of persecution, and upon what- 
ever theme or theory, ology or ism, that may promise to afford 
them such healthful and natural excitements, they will at once 
seize, and, hugging the dear abstraction to their bosoms, do 
battle for the same, with a cunning and unscrupulous ferocity 
that has no parallel. 

“ But for their thorough training under the teaching of Euse- 
dora Polypheme, they might, perhaps, be sometimes disposed 
to pause, and inquire if there might not be two sides to every 
question ; whether they might not have made some slight mis- 
take in crying out ‘ Eureka’ so soon. But, fortunately, they 
are never troubled with this weakness ; and, as their capacity 
for mischief is not, therefore, liable to be impaired by any maud- 
lin conscientiousness, or feeble questioning of their own infalli- 
bility, or that of their teachers, they are from the beginning as 
valuable as trained veterans. 

“ The jargon of the sect, which they acquire with wonderful 
21 ^ 


240 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


facility, constitutes their logic ; and their efficiency in the use 
of this weapon, consists in the savage, waspish, and persevering 
iteration of its phrases, at all times and on all occasions. 

‘‘ It is astonishing, the ease with which the majority of man- 
kind can be bullied, especially from within the bulwark of pet- 
ticoats. But when at once the terrible aspect is hid behind the 
mask of Circe, as the followers of Polypheme know so well to 
accomplish, the power becomes resistless indeed. 

‘‘ The principal weapons of offence used by the followers of 
Polypheme, in all their subsequent metamorphoses, are, first and 
foremost, what is technically termed the ‘ electrical eye.’ This 
is the most brilliant and effective of their weapons. It is not 
by any means necessary that the spiritual Amazon should have 
been gifted by Nature, in this respect ; for the arts of Polypheme 
were clearly inspired from 

‘ Some other deity than Nature, 

That shapes man better/ 

“ After long practice, the power is acquired of dilating or 
straining the eyes wide open, and suffusing them at the same 
time. The moisture gives them a marvellous effect of electrical 
splendor. As this habitual tension can only be sustained for a 
few seconds at a time, Polypheme happily offsets it by the 
modest habit of dropping her eyes towards the floor, or a 
flow’er or book in her hand ; then up go the 

* Downy windows close,' 

and out leaps another humid flash, to electrify her audience. 

“ Great energy and activity of gesticulation is recommended, 
in order to distract attention, as much as possible, from the fact, 
that these cruelly-worked eyes sometimes run over with the 
‘ salt-rheum ’ — of any thing but ‘ grief.’ A loud voice, too, is 
especially recommended — as, without it, somebody else might 
be heard in the room. 

“ Secondly, a thorough knowledge of the minor dramatics of 


ETIIERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


247 

emphasis is also suggested. Sneers should be thoroughly practised 
before the glass, as well as interjections, exclamations, shrieks of 
w^onder and surprise. The grimaces of rage, worked up with great 
ferocity, without the slightest regard to the poor victim. Scorn 
should be lofty and incredibly superb ; archness, irresistible, 
taking care not to pucker the wrinkles in the brow too much ; 
sentiment, nothing short of the white rolling-up of two huge 
spheres in spasm. Childlike simplicity requires great practice 
in the dancing-room ; it is very effective, w^hen artistically done. 
Favorite poets — Petrarch, Shelley, Mrs. Elizabeth Brownson, 
and her husband, ^poor Keats.’ Gods — Tom Moore, Byron, 
and Author of Festus. High-priest of the Arcana — Emerson. 
Priestess — Margaret Fuller Ossoli. Apocalypse — The Dial, 
&c., &c. 

“ Travelling should be studied as an art. The many corre- 
spondences held in different portions of the country should be 
made the dutiful occasion of sentimental visits, w^hich, as they 
may be protracted for a month or two, will, no doubt, result in 
the effectual ‘saving’ of some half-dozen, at the very least, of 
both sexes. Neither scrip nor money need be provided for the 
journey ; for is not the laborer worthy of his hire } Besides, who 
ever heard of a lioness carrying a purse } The wrorld owes all 
its benefactors a living. 

“ It is necessary to be an authoress — abundantly prolific and 
intensely literary: to write dashing, slashing, graceful letters, 
in which your own superb horsewomanship shall always figure 
most prominently ; next, your own disinterestedness ; next, 
your own amiability, and dangerous powers of attraction ; and, 
last, the dashing, slashing, graceful character of your own wit ; 
your romantic love-affairs, by brook and meadow, on highway 
and in byway, by ocean-side or in greenwood. 

“These, with a lofty scorn of the commonplace, a darling 
love of the arts — that is, you must know the names of the pic- 
tures, and what they are all about, but most particularly the 
names of the painters. And if somebody says the picture is a 


248 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


good one, be on terms of intimacy with the painter, or at least 
in close correspondence with him ; and be sure he is a ‘ noble 
spirit,’ a ‘ divine creature,’ one of the ‘elect of genius,’ whose 
‘ eyes have been unsealed to the touch of the Promethean fire.’ 

“ Must know French, Italian, German, and Spanish phrases, 
out of the Pronouncing Dictionary. Quote these occasionally, 
but very guardedly, when you are certain there are no apeish 
foreigners or troublesome old fogy scholars present. 

“ Thus panoplied, the novitiate will be, in every sense, the 
equal of Eusedora Polypheme herself, and entitled to go upon 
the pension-list of the Committee. Indeed, we are booking 
them rapidly, and sending out missionaries in every direction. 

“ The disciples of this school are among the chief favorites 
of the ‘ Committee of Disorganisation.’ ” 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

REPORTS CONTINUED REGINA STRAIGHTBACK 

We have already obtained a glimpse of Regina Straight- 
back, in character. Her tall Indian-like figure, with her pictur- 
esque and semi-manly costume, will not be readily forgotten. 

The faithful police of the ‘ Committee of Disorganisation,’ 
in course of a detailed report concerning this woman, says ; 

“ Regina Straightback is nearly as unbending in temper as in 
figure, which peculiarity renders her of somewhat less avail to 
us than such more ductile natures as her fast friend, Etherial 
Softdown, and her soul’s sister, Eusedora Polypheme. 

“ However, she possesses an availability of her own, which is 
invaluable in its way. She is incontrovertibly the Amazonian 
queen of the ‘ New-Lights.’ Her commanding figure and her 
dramatic carriage, together with her unanswerably positive and 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


249 


imperious manner, have, as implying a natural gift of command, 
won for her the universal suffrage of her sisters militant. So it 
never fails that, by a species of spontaneous acclaim, she is 
selected to preside over all convocations of the ‘ faithful,’ 
whether held in public or in private. 

“ By tacit consent, she has, therefore, come to be regarded 
as the actual figure-head of the bark of Progress; and, hence, 
there is no movement, on the part of feminine schismatics, 
worthy of attention, to which she has chosen to deny her pre- 
siding countenance. 

“ This renders her, of course, a very formidable and import- 
ant person, in all the ‘New-Light’ agitations of the day. Con- 
scious of supremacy, she exercises it without hesitation ; and, 
with a boldness that is startling to all parties, dares to assert 
outright those opinions which, in reality, lie at the bottom of the 
w’hole agitation in which they are engaged. 

“ Indeed, not only does she defiantly assert them openly on 
all occasions, but openly lives up to them in the face of soci- 
ety. While her followers modestly say, they want woman’s civil 
rights in marriage, she courageously asserts, that there is no mar- 
riage except in love, and that the civil contract is like any other 
partnership in which equivalents are exchanged ; and, by way 
of proof of her sincerity, she boasts, publicly and privately, of 
the terms on which she married her present husband ; who, by 
the way, possessed considerable property. ‘I do not love you, 
sir,’ said she ; ‘ I love another man, whom you know. If you 
choose to take me on these conditions, I am ready to marry 
you.’ 

“ The charming candor of this proposal won the day ; and 
the superannuated ‘New- Light’ was fain content to exchange 
his hand and fortune for her /mnd, and to leave her heart to 
settle its affairs in some other direction. 

“ This is the sort of frankness in which the ‘ Committee of 
Disorganisation ’ do most rejoice. They regard it as a highly 
favourable omen, when a ‘ distinguished female’ can take such 


250 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


grounds as this, and be publicly sustained by thousands of her 
sex ; for with whatever gravity they may pretend to repudiate 
the doings of Regina Straightback, in this one particular, it is 
very certain, that they must regard it with secret favor, and that 
this is the principal cause of her universal and overwhelming 
popularity. 

‘‘ They regard her with a species of covert adoration — as a 
heroine, who has first, since Fanny Wright, dared, in living up 
to principle, to do that which they are all, in reality, yearning 
for courage to do themselves. 

‘‘ The chaos of social licentiousness, to which the general 
acceptation of such doctrine as this must lead, may be regarded, 
to say the least of it, as pleasantly melo-dramatic. When one 
w^oman may go to the house of another, and say, ‘ Though thou 
hast been bound to this man, in the holy bonds of matrimony, yet 
these bonds are of no moral force ; though thou hast borne to this 
man children from his loins, yet the fact that thou hast suffered 
gives thee no claim upon him, for it is the penalty of thy sex ; 
and that they are bone of thy bone, and flesh of his flesh, gives 
thee no just hold upon him, but rather upon the State. And if 
thou hast nursed him in sickness, he has fed thee and clothed 
thee, in ample equivalent ; if thou hast loved him, he has loved 
thee ; if thou lovest him still, it is thy weakness. Get thee 
gone ! This man no longer loveth thee ; he is mine. Thou 
shalt surrender to me thy nuptial couch ; there is no true mar- 
riage but in love !’ 

“Nor does the candor of Regina Straightback rest with 
practical declarations such as these ; she goes quite as far 
in other directions. She does not hesitate to denounce the 
Bible, as sanctioning all the oppressions of woman — as the mere 
tool of the priesthood, the orthodox of whom are banded, to a 
man, in mortal opposition to their rights. She recommends the 
use of it, as a means — to those who are more disposed than she 
is to Jesuitism — of conquering by indirections. They may 
influence and control the masses, by invoking its sanction, to be 


ETHERIAL SOFTDOWN. 


251 

sure ; but she, for her own part, will have nothing to do with 
subterfuges ; she rejects the Bible system in toto, as false-false 
in fact and tendency. God has made woman sufficient unto 
herself in the universe. She can and ought to protect herself; 
and if she does not, it’s her own fault. 

“ The Bible might do for men ; but women possess a higher 
spirituality, and stronger intuitions ; they do not need it. Man, 
with his heavy logic, never gets beyond a truism or a self-evi- 
dent fact, of the mere physical world ; while woman, with her 
electrical inspiration, leaps the ‘large lengths’ of universal law, 
and, like a conquering presence, glides within the spiritual, 
supreme. It is thus that, scorning all bonds of sense, she 
knoweth that she doth know ! 

“ The announcement of these tremendous propositions would, 
of course, be calculated to have an overwhelming effect upon 
the tender adolescence of thousands of bright spirits — to elec- 
trify their hearts and souls with the novel consciousness of 
claims and attributes, of which they had never dreamed them- 
selves or their sex to be possessors. 

“ The result has been, of necessity, the institution of a femi- 
nine order of ‘ knight-errantry,’ of which the Quixote has yet to 
be sung. 

“ The Committee do not generally employ such agents as 
Regina Straightback ; but as the time seems to have practically 
arrived, owing to the preparatory labors of Etherial Softdown 
and Eusedora Polypheme, they seem to have conceded that 
such pretensions may be safely risked, though, it is well known, 
they usually do far more harm than good to any cause. 

“ The fact that such a step may be safely ventured upon, 
seems to be the most encouraging token of the progress already 
achieved, and of the ultimate and triumphant success of the 
exertions of the ‘ Committee of Disorganisation.’ ” 


252 


SPIRITUAL VAMPIRISM. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

HUMILITY BAREBONES STOUT. 

The report goes on to say — 

“ But what the circumscribed wits of Etherial Softdown, the 
divine languishments of Eusedora Polypheme, the defiant un- 
scrupulousness of Regina Straightback, failed to accomplish, 
namely, the convulsing of all Christendom, by one dexterous 
jugglery of cant, was left to be achieved by our at present 
most honored agent. Humility Barebones Stout. 

It will be seen, by her genealogical tree, as indicated in 
her middle name, that she came, as it were, prepared, 
through a long table of evangelical descent, for the "work 
before her. Nothing could be conceived more apropos: the 
blood of the Covenanters in the veins of the modern ‘New- 
Light.’ Sharpened in its passage through New England Puri- 
tanism, it has now become as professionally capable of splitting 
hairs, as it formerly was of splitting heads. And then there was 
a time-honored nasal, in which it 

‘ Poured its dolors forth 

the preservation of the exact intonations of which does marvel- 
lous credit to the antiquarian proclivities of this distinguished 
line. Then there is a characteristic command of doggerel 
snatches, confessedly without rhythm, because they were in- 
spired, — for which the Fathers Barebones and Poundtext were 
peculiarly noted in their day, — which seems to have been trans- 
mitted, without the slightest deterioration of manner or em- 
phasis. And, in addition, there was an ecstaticism of text- 
ology, to which these revered fathers uniformly resigned them- 
selves, about the time they had reached their ‘ sixteenthlies,’ 


ETHERIAL SOETDOWN. 


253 


mhe facilities of which seem to have been more than improved 
upon by their modern representative. In a word, no reach of 
nasal effect, 

‘ From coughing trombone down to hoarsened pipe'— ■ 

no fecundaht sprightliness of doggerel — no illuminated aptitude 
of text, betwixt Daniel in the lion’s den, and Death on the pale 
horse — no syllogistic or aphoristic touch of bedridden theology 
that has been in vogue since the time of Luther, but is at the 
tongue’s end of this Cyclopean daughter of the ‘ Fathers of the 
Covenant.’ 

‘‘Admirable! admirable! What w^as to prevent Humility 
Barebones Stout from using these rightfully-derived and ex- 
traordinary gifts for the good of humanity ? Not that she had 
thought anything more philosophically about it, than that the 
good of humanity ought to consist with the claims of her inhe- 
rited renown, her caste, and her prescriptive rights. Not that 
she cared particularly who suffered ; but being of a hysterical 
and exacting temperament, she had come to the conclusion that 
her own, the white race, had conspired against her — that they 
w€te jealous of her — would never yield to her ancestral claims 
a fair precedence. 

“Her pride would not permit her to cry persecution for her- 
self and in her own name ; for she had been, lo ! these many 
days ! a tireless scribbler and notoriety-seeker, in appeals to 
her own race, through the legitimate channels of current litera- 
ture, on the simple basis of her own individual experiences and 
the inspirations proper to her sex and grade. These having 
failed to attract any attention beyond the day’s notoriety, and 
from the additional fact of the most labored of them having 
been consigned to oblivion through the pages of silly annuals, 
she turned herself about in wrath, to avenge her wrongs. Her 
heart w^as filled with bitterness. 

“ She had known Etherial Softdown, with jealous unction ; 
she had communed with Eusedora Polypheme, in hopeless 
22 


254 


SPIEITtJAL VAMPIRISM. 


emulation of spirit ; she had shrunk before the lioness moods 
of the triumphing Regina Straightback. She felt that she was 
displaced — that she had been left behind. She saw that they 
were all too proud, or too far advanced, to condescend to use the 
rusty weapons which had fallen to her by inheritance ; that they 
had set their feet above her, on the platform of progress ; that 
they at least called the semblances of science and philosophy, 
through their terminalogies, to aid them, while they left cant to 
their menials. 

‘‘ She felt that she was as bold as they. In what, then, 
consisted her weakness ? Could the fault be in her ^stars,’ that 
she was still an ‘underling’? ‘Ha! ha! ha! Cant! cant! 
cant!’ and she laughed out, with the exultation of Soft- 
down’s first ‘ Eureka !’ ‘ Cant ! cant ! I have it ! It descended 

to me from Barebones, my illustrious ancestor. Insolent bel- 
dames ! I will show them ! They affect to quote the pure 
strains of philosophy — 

“ To imitate the graces of the gods.” 

We shall see ! we shall see ! I hate my own race ; it has not 
appreciated me. What care I for white-slavery and its abuses — 
for fairness, for truth ? Cant ! cant ! By its magic, I shall 

“ Show as a snowy dove trooping with crows.” 

Eureka! Eureka!’ 

Etherial ! ah, Etherial ! the race hath not been to the swift, 
nor the battle to the strong — thou hast been overshadowed ! 


THE END. 


LIPPINCOTT, QRAxMBO & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. 


THE' YOUNG DOMINICAN; 

OR, THE MYSTERIES OF THE INQUISITION, 

AND OTHER SECRET SOCIETIES OF SPAIN. 

BY M. V. DE FEREAL. 

WITH HISTORICAL NOTES, BY M. MANUEL DE CUENDIAS 

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH TWENTY SPLENDID ENGRAVINGS BY FRENCH ARTISTS 

One volume, octavo. 


SAY’S POLITICAL ECONOMY. 

A TREATISE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY ; 

Or, The Production, Distribution and Consumption of Wealth. 

BY BAPTISTE SAY. 

FIFTH AMERICAN EDITION, WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES, 
BY C. C. BIDDLE, Esq. 

In one volume, octavo. , 

It would be beneficial to our country if all those who are aspiring to office, were required by their 
constituents to be familiar with the pages of Say. 

The distinguished biographer of the author, in noticing this work, observes : “ Happily for science 
he commenced that study which forms the basis of his admirable Treatise on Political Economy ; a 
work which not only improved under his hand with every successive edition, but has been translated 
into most of the European languages.” 

The Editor of the North American Review, speaking of Say, observes, that “he is the most 
popular, and perhaps the most able writer on Political Economy, since the time of Smith.” 


LAURENCE STERNE’S WORKS, 

-WITH A LIFE OF THE AUTHOR: 

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF. 

WITH SEVEN BEAUTIFUL ILLUSTRATIONS, ENGRAVED BY GILBERT AND GIHON, 

FROM DESIGNS BY DARLEY. 

One volume, octavo; cloth, gilt. 

To commend or to criticise Sterne’s Works, in this age of the world, would be all “ wasteful and 
extravagant excess.” Uncle Toby — Corporal Trim — the Widow — Le Fevre — Poor Maria — the 
Captive — even the Dead Ass, — this is all we have to say of Sterne; and in the memory of these 
characters, histories, and sketches, a thousand foUies and worse than follies are forgotten. The 
volume is «. very handsome one. 

^ - >• 

THE MEXICAN WAR AND ITS HEROES, 

BEING 

A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE MEXICAN WAR, 

EMBRACING ALL THE OPERATIONS UNDER GENERALS TAYLOR AND SCOTT. 

WITH A BIOGRAPHY OF THE OFFICERS. 

ALSO, 

AN ACCOUNT OF THE CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA AND NEW MEXICO, 

t'uder fcfen. Kearny Cols. Doniphan and Fremont. Together with Numerous Anecdotes of Um 
W ar, and Personal Adventures of tiie Officers. Illustrated with Accurate 
PorlraiU. and other Beautiful Engravings. 

In one volume, 12mo. 


LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. 


NEW AND COMPLETE COOK-BOOK. 

THE PRACTICAL COOK-BOOK, 

CONTAINING UPWARDS OF 

ONE TI10XTS.A.XTD RECEIPTS, 

Consisting of Directions for Selecting, Preparing, and Cooking all kinds of Meats, Fish, Poultry, and 
Game ; Soups, Broths, Vegetables, and Salads. Also, ror making all kinds of Plain aijd 
Fancy Breads, Pastes, Puddings, Cakes, Creams, Ices, Jellies, Preserves, Manna.- 
lades, <kc. <kc. &c. Together with various Miscellaneous Recipes, 
and numerous Ih-eparations for Invalids. 

BY MRS. BLISS. 

In one volume, 12mo. 

(Citij Jfitrtlinnt ; nr, €jit jjitssttrinns /nilorf. 

BY J. B. JONES, '' 

AUTHOR OF “ WILD WESTERN SCENES,” “ THE WESTERN MERCHANT,” <kO. 

ILLUSTRATED WITH TEN ENGRAVINGS. 

In one volume, 12mo. 


CALIFORNIA AND OREGON; 

OR, SIGHTS IN THE GOLD REGION, AND SCENES BY THE WAY, 

BY THEODOKE T. JOHNSON. 

WITH NOTES, BY HON. SAMUEL R. THURSTON, 

Delegate to Congress from that Territory. 

With numerous Plates and Maps. 

AUNT PHILLIS’S CABIN; 

OR, SOUTHERN LIFE AS IT IS. 

BY MRS. MARY H. EASTMAN. 

PRICE, 50 AND 75 CENTS. 

This volume presents a picture of Southern Life, taken at different points of view from the one 
occupied by the authoress of Uncle Tom's Cabin." The writer, being a native of the South, is fa- 
miliar with the many varied aspects assumed by domestic servitude in that sunny region, and there- 
fore feels competent to give pictures of “ Southern Life, as it is.” 

Pledged to no clique or party, and free from the pressure of any and all extraneous influences, 
she has written her book with a view to its truthfulness ; and the public at the North, as well as 
at the South, will find in “ Aunt Phillis’s Cabin” not the distorted picture of an interested painter, 
hut the faithful transcript of a Daguerreotypist. 

WHAT IS CHURCH HISTORY? 

AVINDICATION OF THE IDEA OF HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS 

BY PHILIP SOHAF. 

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN. 

In one volume, 12mo. 


LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO.'S PUBLICATIONS. 


DODD’S LECTURES. 

DISCOURSES TO YOUNG MEN. 

ILLUSTRATED BY NUltEROUS HIGHLY INTERESTING ANECDOTES. 

BY WILLIAM DODD, LL. D., 

CHAPLAIN IN ORDINARY TO HIS MAJESTY GEORGE THE THIRD. 

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION, WITH ENGRAVINGS. 

One volume, 18mo. 


THE IRIS: 

AN ORIGINAL SOUVENIR. 

With Contributions from the First Writers in the Country. 

EDITED BY PROF. JOHN S. HART. 

With Splendid niuminations and Steel Engravings. Bound in Turkey Morocco and rich Papier 

Mache Binding. 

IN ONE VOLUME, OCTAVO. 

Its contents are entirely original. Among the contributors are names well known in the republic 
of letters ; such as Mr. Boker, Mr. Stoddard, Prof. Moffat, Edith May, Mrs. Sigourney, Caroline May, 
Mrs. Kinney, Mrs. Butler, Mrs. Pease, Mrs. Swift, Mr. Van Bibber, Rev. Charles T. Brooks, Mrs. 
Dorr, Erastus W. Ellsworth, Miss E. W. Barnes, Mrs. Williams, Mary Young, Dr. Gardette, Alice 
Carey, Phebe Carey, Augusta Browne, Hamilton Browne, Caroline Eustis, Margaret Junkin, Maria 
J. B. Browne, Miss Starr, Mrs. Brotherson, Kate Campbell, ikc. 

dfins from larreb Mlm; 

OR, HOLY THOUGHTS UPON SACRED SUBJECTS. 

BY CLERGYMEN OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH. 

EDITED BY THOMAS WYATT, A.M. 

In one volume, 12mo. 

WITH SEVEN BEAUTIFUL STEEL ENGRAVINGS. 

The contents of thisVork are chiefly by clergymen of the Episcopal Church. Among the con- 
tributors w'ill be found the names of the Right Rev. Bishop Potter, Bishop Hopkins, Bishop Smith, 
Bishop Johns, and Bishop Doane ; and the Rev. Drs. H. V. D. Johns, Coleman, and Butler ; Rev. G. 
T. Bedell, M’Cabe, Ogilsby, <kc. The illustrations are rich and exquisitely wrought engravings upon 
t.ie following subjects Samuel before Eli,” “Peter and John healing the Lame Man,” “The 
Resurrection of Christ,” “Joseph sold by his Brethren," “The Tables of the Law." “Christ’s 
Agony in the Garden,” and “The Flight into Egypt.” These subjects, with many others in prose 
and verse, are ably treated throughout the work. 


« 

ANCIENT CHRISTIANITY EXEMPLIFIED, 

In the Private, Domestic, Social, and Civil Life of the Primitive 
Christians, and in the Original Institutions, OiBces, 
Ordinances, and Rites of the Church* 

BY REV. LYMAN COLEMAN, D.D. 

In one volume 8vo. Price $2 60. 

18 


LIPPINCOTT, GRAMBO & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS. 

■ ■■■ I I J L ■■ ..I ■ ■■ — - ' " 

LONZ POWERS; Or, The Regulators. 

A ROMANCE OF KENTUCKY. 

FOUNDED ON FACTS. 

BY JAIVXES WEIR, ESQ. 

IN TWO VOLUMES. 

) The scenes, characters, and incidents in these Tolumes have been copied from nature, and firom 
leal life. They are represented as taking; place at that period in the history of Kentucky, when 
the Indian, driven, after many a hard-fought held, from his favourite hunting-ground, was succeeded 
by a rude and unlettered population, interspersed with organized bands of desperadoes, scaTCslf 
less savage than the red men they had displaced. The author possesses a vigorous and graphia 
pen, and has produced a very interesting romance, which gives us a striking portrait of the times 
he describes. 


A PRACTICAL TREATISE ON BUSINESS; 

OR, HOW TO GET, SAVE, SPEND, GIVE, LEND, AND BEQUEATH MONEY: 

WITH AN INQUIRY INTO THE CHANCES OF SUCCESS AND CAUSES 
OF FAILURE IN BUSINESS. 

BY EDWIN T. FREEDLY. 

Also, Prize Essays, Statistics, Miscellanies, and numerous private letters from successful and 

distinguished busiuess men. 

12mo., cloth. Price One Dollar. 

The object of this treatise is fourfold. First, the elevation of the business character, and to define 
clearly the limits within which it is not only proper but obligatory to get money. Secondly, to lay 
down the principles which must be observed to insure success, and what must be avoided to escape 
failure. Thirdly, to give the mode of management in certain prominent pursuits adopted by the 
most successful, from which men in all kinds of business may derive profitable hints. Fourthly, to 
afford a work of solid interest to those who read without expectation of pecuniary benefit. 


A MANUAL OF POLITENESS, 

' COMPRISING THK 

PRINCIPLES OF ETIQUETTE AND RULES OF BEHAVIOUR 

IN GENTEEL SOCIETY, FOR PERSONS OP BOTH SEXES. 

18mo., witli Plates. 


Book of Politeness. 


THE GENTLEMAN AND LADY’S 

BOOK OF POLITENESS AND PROPRIETY OF DEPORTMENl 

DEDICATED TO THE YOUTH OF BOTH SEXES. 

BY IVEADAIVEE CELNART. 

Translated from the Sixth Paris Edition, Enlarged and Improved, 

^ Flftli American B^dition. 

r ^ One volume, 18mo. 

THE ANTEDILUVIANS; Or, The World Destroyed. 

A NARRATIVE POEM, IN TEN BOOKS. 

BY JAMES M‘HENRY, M.D. 

One volume, 18mo 

19 







« 


1 

I V 

' V‘ > ' 

k i 1/tl it* ' /.\ii 







I 






y\\\ W /. /. 



*■ 'ik^^ 



c» A \* ^ r- 

\' V. '' ' ^ ^ 

» r-^C'( 


O 

^v- . V • « ^ 'T- a\ c « ^ % 

r^ \ ^ -/f'j ‘O *> '^sr. ^ 

■^ . O '- Mi\\l///y'k^ .-^ 1.^ 

<. ^ 0^ . 

"** »> 5k~ 

<■ rii' /' ^ O . 

<y ,. ., r^ ^ .^0 X i x\^ 



^^wJr- 


/, ‘-z^ 


^ 9 \ \ 



<l 


o 

'b* \ 


o -V . .'V Z^'^Ji'''’' 




V? u. 'V <;• ■» 

\ -? O •'^ O ^-.SNTsr. /' 

-^b v^'^ = 

<■ ‘X ci' #- < o S' C' / « -0 

<P % * Z A' 

<.V <> " 



s" 

v: "" t» ^ 

° ‘‘/A cPV' 

■Cr 







,= ^° -^ct- 

- , a- 0 ^ ,0^ ^ 

'VC 

o 




V'V’ ^ 


" ‘ ■ 


' '*S 




1> 

/y>ar V 

^ O '^b % 

1 A * \\^ ^ ') N 0 ■ s. 

Vs / /^ c* , V ^ 



A-.,aX' ; 



c, </> 

(, ^ **'''' \ ' * >0 ’' 0 * V '*' a'^ 

' ^ o° 3 ''A^'' ^ -‘^ 

✓ ■ ^ Jt^ni/oz^ ‘f' 








vVs'’-'^ % 



'V 


' rO'" v^ ' ■ " ^ ^ "b^ "^ '"' C ^ 

ov -ov^ » 

4 0^ *" r\ * 






aV-*^ 

av 


.0' V* , 0 N C 

'"•^ ■'’' ' '"'o V 




^ « S '* aO 

.0' «*'■ 




<y 5* ,0^ ^ 

.0^ 'J- ^ ® / > » 1 ^ 

* - rw <k- rA^w A> \* 

- c!^ JS\3^//h O iX^ 

^'i'^ .' _,««^V.v'. '^_ O' 






^ % 






